Ask a question! How Italian children with cochlear implants produce subject and object wh- questions

Syntax is impaired in individuals with cochlear implants (CIs). Several studies have shown that Italian speaking children fitted with CIs have troubles with relative clauses (Volpato & Adani 2009; Volpato 2010; Volpato 2012; Volpato & Vernice 2014), sentences containing clitic pronouns (Guasti et al. 2014), and wh-questions (Volpato & D’Ortenzio 2017). The aim of this study is to provide a detailed analysis of the production of wh-questions by a group of 13 Italian-speaking children fitted with CIs, and to compare their performance with a group of 13 typically developing children matched on comparable chronological age. Accuracy is lower in the group of children with CIs than in controls, but no significant difference was found between the two groups. However, much individual variability was observed. Some children with CIs showed good competence of Italian. Other children produce ungrammatical sentences, which is evidence of the linguistic delay associated to hearing impairment, even when they are fitted with CI

Prediction of segregation in funnel and mass flow discharge

In this paper we present a model to predict the onset and evolution of segregation during the discharge of binary mixtures of granular materials. The model accounts for the multi-phase and multi-component nature of the granular mixtures, to simulate the main flow regimes occurring in the discharge of silos (funnel and mass flow) and how they affect segregation. The new comprehensive model for segregation follows a continuum Eulerian approach and results from the coupling between an ad-hoc rheology for granular flow and a percolation model for multi-component mixtures. Predictions are compared with independent literature experimental data, for short and tall silos and prove to be quite accurate, after a tuning of the percolation flux sub-model. The larger segregation in short flow paths with smaller amount of fines reported by the experiments is quantitatively predicted. The model also predicts the three phases observed in experiments during the discharge of tall silos

The production of relative clauses by Italian cochlear-implanted and hearing children

This study investigates the elicited production of subject (SRs) and object relatives (ORs) in Italian by 13 cochlear-implanted (CI) children (age:7;9-10;8) to determine whether and to what extent they differ from three groups of 13 normal hearing (NH) children matched on morphosyntactic abilities (age:5;0-7;9), chronological age (age:7;5-10;3), and auditory age (e.g. duration of CI use (age:4;11-9;4)) respectively. Results showed that for CI children, SRs are more accurate than ORs. The same asymmetry is observed in all NH groups, although NH children’s percentages of target responses are higher for both sentence typologies. The syntactic difficulty with ORs led CI and NH groups to adopt a considerable number of answering strategies: among them, production of passive relatives, causative constructions, and wh- elements replacing the complementizer che (‘that’). Individual performance variability within the CI group is observed. Some CI children showed good competence in Italian and age-peer performance by producing passive relatives, which are largely attested in older children’s production. For other CI children, however, the tendency to produce sentences attested in young children’s production is evidence of the linguistic delay associated to hearing impairment. In this case, the performance of these CI children was comparable to that of younger NH children

L’uso del test di ripetizione per la valutazione della competenza sintattica del bambino sordo con impianto cocleare

Reduced language inputs due to hearing loss can affect the development of syntactically complex structures derived by syntactic movement. Cochlear implants (CIs) can provide proper linguistic input to children with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss. However, despite an early diagnosis and intervention, and the development of lexical skills and speech perception similar to typically developing age peers, children with CIs still show a delay in processing movement-derived structures. Following previous studies on deaf or hard-of-hearing Hebrew, and German-speaking children, this study provides first data on the repetition of movement-derived syntactically complex structures in Italian-speaking children with CIs. Indeed, as shown by previous studies, resorting to a sentence repetition task allow to analyse both the participant’s ability in analysing structures derived by movement and their memory skills. It also allows to exclude memory as the cause of misinterpretation of the stimuli. Results showed that children with CIs performed poorer than their typically developing age peers and showed many difficulties in all the structures characterized by a complex derivation. Interestingly, both groups showed several difficulties in the production of oblique prepositional and genitive relative clauses

The Shadow of the Italian Colonial Experience: The Impact of Collective Emotions on Intentions to Help the Victims’ Descendants

Recalling the Italian colonial experience elicits the collective emotions of guilt, shame, and ingroup-focused anger. We expected that these emotions would predict different reparation intentions in favor of the colonized populations' descendants. Students and non-students were recruited (N = 152) and asked to rate their emotions of collective guilt, shame, and anger for the violence that their ingroup had perpetrated against colonized people. Results showed that shame affected intentions to provide economic compensation to current inhabitants of the ex-colonies. This relationship was mediated by concerns of damage for the ingroup's image. Anger toward the ingroup predicted intentions to help immigrants from the ex-colonies now living in Italy. Interestingly, empathy toward the outgroup mediated the latter relation. Finally, collective guilt was not reliably associated with any reparation strategy. These findings have implications for theory and for the historical collective memory of Italian colonialism

Picturing the Other: Targets of Delegitimization across Time

Italian Fascist propaganda was compared with contemporary right-wing material to explore how political propaganda depicts specific target groups in different historical periods. Taking the theory of delegitimization as the theoretical framework, we analyzed visual images concerning despised social groups used by the Fascist regime and current images of contemporary targets of social resentment used by Lega Nord (currently part of the governing coalition). Images of Jewish and Black people published in the Fascist magazine La Difesa della Razza were classified according to eight delegitimizing strategies, as were images of immigrants used on Lega Nord propaganda posters. Although the target group has changed, six of the eight strategies of delegitimization were used in both periods. In most cases, overlap was found in the way target groups were portrayed in the past and in the present

Effects of objective and subjective indicators of economic inequality on subjective well-being: Underlying mechanisms

Much research found that economic inequality - the dispersion of incomes distribution among individuals in a society - affects subjective well-being (SWB). As a meta-analysis has shown, the association between economic inequality, commonly measured by the Gini index, and individuals' SWB is weak and not significant. Psychosocial research suggests that the situational perception, rather than objective reality, has a greater impact on individuals. Our aim was to investigate whether and how objective and subjective measures of economic inequality affect the subjective individuals' well-being, both in its affective and cognitive components. A representative Italian sample (N = 1446, 51% women; average age = 42.42 years, SD = 12.87) answered an online survey. Multilevel regressions detected a negative and significant effect of the inequality perception on well-being. In contrast, the Gini index showed no effect. Two psychological mechanisms explain the association between perceived inequality and well-being: Perceived anger toward inequality and individuals' economic vulnerability. The parallel mediation models showed that the effect of perceived inequality is conveyed by cognitive (economic vulnerability) and emotional (anger) processing of inequality. Findings also highlighted the role of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic

Predictors of the perceived efficacy of actions against austerity measures

In this paper, we analyse the responses of 450 students from Greece, Portugal and Italy, who were asked to assess the efficacy of 32 actions as reactions against the austerity measures implemented to deal with the financial and economic crisis. These actions were organized into six types by a principal component factor analysis, and were ranked as follows from the most effective to the least effective: protectionism, civic participation, political resistance to government measures, individual financial protection, economic resistance to government measures and violence. Results showed that Greek respondents, who were in the most difficult socioeconomic situation, viewed all types of actions, except civic participation and individual financial protection, as more effective than the other respondents did. Regression analyses revealed, however, that crisis-related variables, in particular the attribution of responsibility for the crisis to internal factors and not to the people, and individual-related variables, such as political orientation and the intensity of depressive feelings, were strong predictors of the assessment of the efficacy of actions, in addition to the socioeconomic situation of the countries

Spectroscopic Kernel Quality From A Symbiotic Corn Production

The management of the inoculation of a plant's roots, by means of biofertilizers (BF) containing arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, is aimed at inducing modifications of the quality of the seeds. It is here shown that a seed-soil treatment can be elicited in the fingerprints of a symbiotic treatment using Near Infra Red (NIR)-SCiO NIR-SCiO spectra collections of single kernels: overall, a sensitivity of 73% and a specificity of 73% have been achieved, thus suggesting that it may be possible to assign the symbiotic origin of corn from just twenty kernels, provided that the dataset is adequately representative of the cultivar and AM. A global correlation study has shown a positive general trend (R2 0.45) of quality vs. quantity, in the sense that an increase in yield corresponded to an increase in the spectral differences between the symbiotic spectra and the control ones, but the inverse was also true, as a result of the parasitic behaviour of the BF treatments. The efficacy of the symbiosis can be back predicted from the NIR spectra; in fact, around 90% of the positive yield outcome results were discriminated from the negative ones. A reduction in the foliar pH (R2 0.37) and an increase in the foliar protein (R2 0.43) were observed as immediate phenotypic signs of a productive symbiosis. The commercial raw composition of the kernels appeared to only be affected slightly by the BF treatments; thus, till now uncharted secondary compounds of the maize kernels are involved, as supported by animal performances