Exploring a neural-network account of age-of-acquisition effects using repetition priming of faces

The question of whether age-of-acquisition(AoA), frequency, and repetition priming effects occur at a common stage or at different stages of processing is addressed. Two single-stage accounts (i.e., cumulative frequency and a neural-network simulation) are considered in regard to their predictions concerning the interactions between AoA and frequencywith aging and priming effects.A repetition-priming face-classification task was conducted on both older and younger participants to test these predictions. Consistent with the predictions of the neural-network simulation, AoA had an effect on reaction times that could not be explained by cumulative frequency alone. Also, as predicted by the simulation, the size of the priming effect was determined by the cumulative frequency of the item. It is discussed how this evidence is supportive of the notion that AoA, frequency, and priming all have effects at a common and single stage during face processing

The British Lexicon Project: Lexical decision data for 28,730 monosyllabic and disyllabic English words

We present a new database of lexical decision times for English words and nonwords, for which two groups of British participants each responded to 14,365 monosyllabic and disyllabic words and the same number of nonwords for a total duration of 16 h (divided over multiple sessions). This database, called the British Lexicon Project (BLP), fills an important gap between the Dutch Lexicon Project (DLP; Keuleers, Diependaele, & Brysbaert, Frontiers in Language Sciences. Psychology, 1, 174, 2010) and the English Lexicon Project (ELP; Balota et al., 2007), because it applies the repeated measures design of the DLP to the English language. The high correlation between the BLP and ELP data indicates that a high percentage of variance in lexical decision data sets is systematic variance, rather than noise, and that the results of megastudies are rather robust with respect to the selection and presentation of the stimuli. Because of its design, the BLP makes the same analyses possible as the DLP, offering researchers with a new interesting data set of word-processing times for mixed effects analyses and mathematical modeling. The BLP data are available at http://crr.ugent.be/blp and as Electronic Supplementary Materials

Age of acquisition effects in normal reading and in deep dyslexia

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DX202132 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

A 29-year-old female with progressive myoclonus and cognitive decline

Myoclonic epilepsy with red ragged fibres (MERRF) is a rare mitochondrial disorder presenting with progressive myoclonus, epilepsy, and cognitive decline. Here, the authors present a case of a 29-year-old lady presenting with myoclonus and describe the subsequent investigations that led to a diagnosis of MERRF. In addition, we examine her cognitive decline over a 9-year period, demonstrating a feature commonly seen in mitochondrial cytopathies