An Ecological Alternative to Snodgrass & Vanderwart: 360 High Quality Colour Images with Norms for Seven Psycholinguistic Variables

This work presents a new set of 360 high quality colour images belonging to 23 semantic subcategories. Two hundred and thirty-six Spanish speakers named the items and also provided data from seven relevant psycholinguistic variables: age of acquisition, familiarity, manipulability, name agreement, typicality and visual complexity. Furthermore, we also present lexical frequency data derived from Internet search hits. Apart from the high number of variables evaluated, knowing that it affects the processing of stimuli, this new set presents important advantages over other similar image corpi: (a) this corpus presents a broad number of subcategories and images; for example, this will permit researchers to select stimuli of appropriate difficulty as required, (e.g., to deal with problems derived from ceiling effects); (b) the fact of using coloured stimuli provides a more realistic, ecologically-valid, representation of real life objects. In sum, this set of stimuli provides a useful tool for research on visual object-and word- processing, both in neurological patients and in healthy controls

A method for studying the evolution of naming error types in the recovery of acute aphasia : A single-patient and single-stimulus approach

In this study, we present a method for analysing the evolution of picture naming errors in the follow-up of single patients affected by acute aphasia. In particular, we have based our analysis on the presence of response type inconsistency, as patients often fail to give the same type of response to the same stimulus at a task repetition attempted after a short time. Due to the uncertain definition of the type of response associated to a given stimulus for each stage of the clinical course, the investigation of the factors underlying the transition between different types of response is a serious methodological challenge. The solution presented here is based on a multiple presentation of the same naming battery at different stages of the clinical course, on the estimation of the probability associated with each response type at each stage, and on the estimation of the transition probability between different response types from one clinical stage to another. The basic idea was to use the set of probabilities referred to above as single stimuli weights in the study of linear models; these permit to compare different types of responses and different types of transitions. We present the application of this method to the study of a single case, a woman affected by fluent aphasia examined twice in the first 2 weeks following stroke. Besides discussing empirical findings, we comment on the usefulness of this method for wider fields of inquiry

Implications of 21 Code of Federal Regulations Part 11-Computer Validations and COTS System Testing

Information technology is critical in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration\u27s (FDA\u27s) mission to protect and promote public health. The use of computers as tools to capture, create, store, manage, and archive information related to business operations presents a number of formidable challenges and issues relating to data and information trustworthiness and reliability for the FDA regulated pharmaceutical industry. After five years of implementation, the pharmaceutical industry has not developed a consistent interpretation of21 Code of Federal Regulations Part II and approaches to computer validation are still unclear. As of this writing, new guidelines are still being issued. In February 2003, for example, the FDA issued the Guidance for Industry Part 11, Electronic Records; Electronic Signatures-Scope and Application. The draft guidance states that Part II will be re-examined and provisions of the regulation may be revised. Computer validation as defined by the FDA means confirmation by examination and provision of objective evidence that computer system specifications conform to user needs and intended uses, and that all requirements can be consistently fulfilled. During computer validation, testing is performed to prove that the system will capture, create, store, manage, and archive regulatory records in a reliable and trustworthy way. The challenge of meeting the FDA requirement for validation of software systems is compounded by the fact that the industry depends on Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) systems. These systems are developed to provide general business solutions and market demand drives the selection of what features will be included in the software. As a result, COTS systems do not necessarily comply with the industry requirements for computer validation. This case study analyzes COTS system testing as a computer validation key practice area and proposes a computer validation key practice model for COTS testing. In addition, the study contributes to a greater understanding of COTS testing strategies and helps shed light on the practical implications of the still-evolving federal regulation

Aging and psychometric diagnosis of intellective impairment: Some considerations on test scores and their use

his article discusses some problems arising from the use in diagnostics of psychometric test scores previously adjusted for the influence of age and of other concomitant variables (e.g,, education). Some solutions adopted by an Italian Cooperative Study on the neuropsychological aspects of aging are reported, and the limits of the statistical processing of adjusted test scores are discussed

A case of prevailing deficit of non-living categories or a case of prevailing sparing of living-categories?

We describe a new case of semantic deficit in which nonliving categories are disproportionately impaired. PL, a woman affected by progressive degeneration of the left temporal lobe, was examined twice, at a distance of 1 year. The deficit was first apparent on naming and on a verbal semantic questionnaire, but a year later nonliving categories were disproportionately affected also on verbal comprehension (word/picture matching task). Body parts and musical instruments were also investigated: the former was the best preserved category, whereas the latter was the most severely affected. Considering all categories, functional and perceptual information was not differently affected, but there was a trend toward a worse score for nonliving category functional questions. Discussing the current hypotheses on the genesis of category dissociations, we conclude that nonliving categories might not be a true domain, and that their impairment could simply derive from the relative sparing of the domains of the living categories, for which separate cognitive and anatomical representations can be better postulated. Finally, we discuss the problems raised by published cases in an attempt to find a consistent anatomical substrate for category dissociations