Foreign Accent Syndrome: in the ear of the beholder?

Original article can be found at: http://www.informaworld.com Copyright Informa / Taylor and Francis Group [Full text of this article is not available in the UHRA]Background: The identification of accent type in patients with acquired accent change following brain damage (Foreign Accent Syndrome; FAS), may vary depending on the judge. Aims: This experiment tests the accent identification abilities of nave judges listening to speech samples from FAS patients versus healthy controls. Method & Procedures: A total of 52 naive judges listened to speech samples from speakers of British English, which were presented over audio CD. They were asked to identify the accent type, but were blind as to the identity of the participants vis--vis FAS versus control, and foreign versus native UK. Accuracy, variability, and confidence ratings were assessed as a function of participant and of accent type. Outcomes & Results: The nave judges displayed greater accuracy, consistency, and confidence in typing the control versus the FAS accents. There was a positive familiarity effect for the control, but not the FAS accents. Conclusions: The data provide preliminary support for the view that FAS is not exclusively “in the ear of the beholder”.Peer reviewe

Hand preference and performance in 20 pairs of monozygotic twins with discordant handedness

Original article can be found at: http://www.sciencedirect.com Copyright Masson [Full text of article is not available in the UHRA]The differences between right (RH) and left (LH) handers reported in the literature on fine motor tasks, has traditionally been interpreted relative to purported functioning of the cerebral hemispheres. However, conclusive evidence for performance differences which are intrinsic to handedness per se is difficult to obtain unless left and right handers are compared who are similar in their genetic and environmental background. The present study therefore, employed a monozygotic (MZ) twin design which minimizes differences in genetic variation between the two groups. Forty female monozygotic twins (20 pairs) were selected on the basis of discordance of writing hand. Their laterality preferences were assessed and they were tested for differences on hand performance tasks (dot filling, finger tapping, and peg moving). The results revealed that on the hand and foot preference inventories, the right-handers were more strongly lateralized than their left-handed sisters, and that the left-handers had greater variation in their laterality scores. There were substantial correlations between preference and performance scores. The analyses not only revealed the obvious strong main effects of writing hand on performance tasks, but interaction effects of handedness on the peg-moving task. The dot filling task differentiated the writing versus non-writing hand considerably better than either of the other two performance tasks. However, no evidence was found to indicate that twins who wrote with their left hands showed poorer performance than their right-handed twin sisters.Peer reviewe