When orthography is not enough: the effect of lexical stress in lexical decision.

Three lexical decision experiments were carried out in Italian, in order to verify if stress dominance (the most frequent stress type) and consistency (the proportion and number of existent words sharing orthographic ending and stress pattern) had an effect on polysyllabic word recognition. Two factors were manipulated: whether the target word carried stress on the penultimate (dominant; graNIta, seNIle 'slush, senile') or on the antepenultimate (non-dominant) syllable (MISsile, BIbita 'missile, drink'), and whether the stress neighborhood was consistent (graNIta, MISsile) or inconsistent (seNIle, BIbita) with the word\u2019s stress pattern. In Experiment 1 words were mixed with nonwords sharing the word endings, which made words and nonwords more similar to each other. In Experiment 2 words and nonwords were presented in lists blocked for stress pattern. In Experiment 3 we used a new set of nonwords, which included endings with (stress) ambiguous neighborhoods and/or with low number of neighbors, and which were overall less similar to words. In all three experiments there was an advantage for words with penultimate (dominant) stress, and no main effect of stress neighborhood. However, the dominant stress advantage decreased in Experiments 2 and 3. Finally, in Experiment 4 the same materials used in Experiment 1 were also used in a reading aloud task, showing a significant consistency effect, but no dominant stress advantage. The influence of stress information in Italian word recognition is discussed

Neural codes for one’s own position and direction in a real-world “vista” environment

Humans, like animals, rely on an accurate knowledge of one’s spatial position and facing direction to keep orientated in the surrounding space. Although previous neuroimaging studies demonstrated that scene-selective regions (the parahippocampal place area or PPA, the occipital place area or OPA and the retrosplenial complex or RSC), and the hippocampus (HC) are implicated in coding position and facing direction within small-(room-sized) and large-scale navigational environments, little is known about how these regions represent these spatial quantities in a large open-field environment. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in humans to explore the neural codes of these navigationally-relevant information while participants viewed images which varied for position and facing direction within a familiar, real-world circular square. We observed neural adaptation for repeated directions in the HC, even if no navigational task was required. Further, we found that the amount of knowledge of the environment interacts with the PPA selectivity in encoding positions: individuals who needed more time to memorize positions in the square during a preliminary training task showed less neural attenuation in this scene-selective region. We also observed adaptation effects, which reflect the real distances between consecutive positions, in scene-selective regions but not in the HC. When examining the multi-voxel patterns of activity we observed that scene-responsive regions and the HC encoded both spatial information and that the RSC classification accuracy for positions was higher in individuals scoring higher to a self-reported questionnaire of spatial abilities. Our findings provide new insight into how the human brain represents a real, large-scale “vista” space, demonstrating the presence of neural codes for position and direction in both scene-selective and hippocampal regions, and revealing the existence, in the former regions, of a map-like spatial representation reflecting real-world distance between consecutive positions

Age-related effects on spatial memory across viewpoint changes relative to different reference frames

Remembering object positions across different views is a fundamental competence for acting and moving appropriately in a large-scale space. Behavioural and neurological changes in elderly subjects suggest that the spatial representations of the environment might decline compared to young participants. However, no data are available on the use of different reference frames within topographical space in aging. Here we investigated the use of allocentric and egocentric frames in aging, by asking young and older participants to encode the location of a target in a virtual room relative either to stable features of the room (allocentric environment-based frame), or to an unstable objects set (allocentric objects-based frame), or to the viewer's viewpoint (egocentric frame). After a viewpoint change of 0$,^{circ}$ (absent), 45$,^{circ}$ (small) or 135$,^{circ}$ (large), participants judged whether the target was in the same spatial position as before relative to one of the three frames. Results revealed a different susceptibility to viewpoint changes in older than young participants. Importantly, we detected a worst performance, in terms of reaction times, for older than young participants in the allocentric frames. The deficit was more marked for the environment-based frame, for which a lower sensitivity was revealed as well as a worst performance even when no viewpoint change occurred. Our data provide new evidence of a greater vulnerability of the allocentric, in particular environment-based, spatial coding with aging, in line with the retrogenesis theory according to which cognitive changes in aging reverse the sequence of acquisition in mental development

Women and Authority: Transitioning Into a Role of Assigned Authority as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in a Leadership Class

Women are assuming positions with significant formal authority, yet women still remain underrepresented in many areas of the public sector (Kellerman & Rhode, 2007). Additionally, women in formal positions of authority have increased opportunities to exercise leadership and address challenges while mobilizing people toward change. Formal positions of authority include the role of mother, schoolteacher, senator, or senior executive. It is rare for women to receive any practice for the authority roles they assume and as such may find the roles accompanied by interactions and processes that are unfamiliar to them. The role of Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) provides women the opportunity to practice, and hopefully improve upon, their ability to learn about, demonstrate, and manage authority. Thus, this study investigated the experiences of six female graduate teaching assistants in a semester long graduate leadership class that used case-in-point pedagogy. The purpose of this research was to better understand women\u27s experience as they transitioned into a formal role of authority as a GTA. Three research questions framed this study: 1) How do female graduate students in a graduate-level leadership class experience the transition into a role of formal authority, 2) How do female teaching assistants in a graduate-level leadership class experience, understand, and think about themselves in a role that has a great deal of formal authority, and 3) What are female teaching assistants\u27 perceptions of how, if at all, their authority was used in the service of leadership? A grounded theory approach was used that incorporated some elements of feminist research principles. Data collection included multiple interviews with the participants over the semester, observations of the leadership class, document review of participants\u27 journals and reflection papers, and a final group interview with five participants to discuss the themes that emerged as a result of the preliminary analysis. Findings indicate that a complex process of finding and using their voice characterized the women\u27s transition into their role. Additionally, the women experienced tensions around understanding themselves and the leadership class system as a whole; these tensions needed to be reconciled before the women could employ strategies for demonstrating their authority

Caloric vestibular stimulation reduces pain and somatoparaphrenia in a severe chronic central post-stroke pain patient: a case study

Central post-stroke pain is a neuropathic syndrome characterized by intolerable contralesional pain and, in rare cases, somatic delusions. To date, there is limited evidence for the effective treatments of this disease. Here we used caloric vestibular stimulation to reduce pain and somatoparaphrenia in a 57-year-old woman suffering from central post-stroke pain. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to assess the neurological effects of this treatment. Following vestibular stimulation we observed impressive improvements in motor skills, pain, and somatic delusions. In the functional connectivity study before the vestibular stimulation, we observed differences in the patient's left thalamus functional connectivity, with respect to the thalamus connectivity of a control group (N = 20), in the bilateral cingulate cortex and left insula. After the caloric stimulation, the left thalamus functional connectivity with these regions, which are known to be involved in the cortical response to pain, disappeared as in the control group. The beneficial use of vestibular stimulation in the reduction of pain and somatic delusion in a CPSP patient is now documented by behavioral and imaging data. This evidence can be applied to theoretical models of pain and body delusions

Reading segments is not reading words: Comment on Kawamoto et al. (2014)

Word production involves computing the sound of a word from its concept or visually presented form. To perform such process multiple operations are required, including lexical access, word form encoding, and articulation. With regard to articulation, a critical issue is understanding which is the minimal planning unit (henceforth MPU) to address articulatory programs and start motor implementation. Kawamoto and colleagues (2014, QJEP) have recently proposed that the MPU consists in the word initial segment. The segment as MPU hypothesis is winsome, but it is difficult to substantiate. In this commentary, we argue that, in addition to some methodological concerns, at least three issues may challenge this hypothesis. A first challenge to the segment as MPU hypothesis is how to reconcile it with the typical articulatory behavior shown by readers. A second issue questioning the generalizability of the segment as MPU hypothesis is the phonetic realization of stress in polysyllabic words, which in many languages constitute a great part of the lexicon. A third issue deals with the opacity of the orthography-to-phonology mapping. Overall, our observations suggest that the segment as MPU hypothesis is more an exceptional behavior than the behavior usually occurring at the phonology-to-phonetics interface of the reading system. We show that several findings suggest that the phonology-to-phonetics interface adopts units larger than the segment. The latter proposal can account for a bulk of phenomena such as those related to orthography-to-phonology opacity, stress assignment, and co-articulation

Priming lexical stress in reading Italian aloud.

Two naming experiments using lexical priming were conducted to investigate how stress information is processed in reading Italian aloud. In the experiments, word primes and targets either shared the stress pattern, or they had different stress patterns. The hypothesis was that lexical activation of the prime would favor the assignment of a congruent stress to the target word. Results show that participants were faster in naming low-frequency target words that had the same stress pattern as the prime, than in naming targets with a different stress than the prime. Similar effects were found on word targets that were included in lists in which primes and targets had the same stress type (experiment 1), and in lists that were mixed for stress type and congruency (experiment 2). The results indicate that, in single word reading, metrical information about stress position is activated in the lexicon, autonomously from phonemic segmental information

Dike propagation within active central volcanic edifices: constraints from Somma-Vesuvius, Etna and analogue models

Dikes within stratovolcanoes are commonly expected to have radial patterns. However, other patterns may also be also found, due to regional stresses, magmatic reservoirs, topographic variations. Here we investigate dike patterns within volcanic edifices, by studying dike and fissure complexes at Somma-Vesuvius and Etna (Italy) and using analogue models. At the surface, the dikes and fissures show a radial configuration. At depths of tens to several hundreds of m, in areas exposed by erosion, tangential and oblique dikes are also present. Analogue models indicate that dikes approaching the flanks of cones, regardless of their initial orientation, reorient to become radial (parallel to the maximum gravitational stress). This reorientation is a significant process in shallow magma migration and may also control the emplacement of dike-fed fissures reaching the lower slopes of the volcano

When characters impact on dubbing: the role of sexual stereotypes on voice actor/actress’ preferences

Dubbing is a procedure through which an original actor’s voice is replaced with that of a voice actor, usually speaking a different language. Dubbing is not only an adaptation to language but also to cultural beliefs. Across two studies, we analyzed how some Italian participants would prefer a television series’ character to sound. In Study 1, participants read a male/female character description that was manipulated according to gender and sexual stereotypes in order to be masculine, feminine, or gender-neutral. Next, participants were asked to indicate their preference for three voice actors/actresses who sounded heterosexual, gay/lesbian, or ambivalent. Study 2 tested the interplay between a character’s description and the voice of the English-speaking (gay/lesbian vs. heterosexual sounding) actor/actress who played the role in the original television series on dubbing preferences. The results of both studies showed that a character’s description affected dubbing preferences. Participants preferred the gay/lesbian-sounding voice actor/actress to the counter-stereotypical character (i.e., a feminine man or a masculine woman) and the heterosexual-sounding voice actor/actress to the stereotypical character. Interestingly, at least for male targets, the original actor’s voice itself affected the preference for voice actors in the same way. This work suggests that dubbing can maintain and reinforce stereotypes.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The developmental trend of transposed letters effects in masked priming

In the current study, we investigated the development of trans- posed letter (TL) priming effects with masked priming. Recent studies have reported different and contrasting results concerning the age at which TL priming effects first appear and whether they tend to decline or increase with age. One of the aims of this study was to investigate the developmental trend of orthographic mech- anisms underlying the TL effects in Italian. We tested three groups of children (second, third, and fifth graders) and a group of adults with a sandwich masked priming procedure, presenting lists of tar- get words preceded by TL or replaced letter (RL) primes. TLs and RLs were either at the beginning (second\u2013third letters) or the end (fourth\u2013sixth letters) of primes in order to see whether the TL priming effect varied according to position in the letter string. We found that TL priming effects increased with age in both accu- racy and latency. No effect of position was found. The results are discussed in light of a possible difference in the development of orthographic mechanisms depending on the transparency of the language