1,720,974 research outputs found
Intelligence and left hemisphere disease. The role of aphaisa, apraxia and size of lesion
No full textThe Raven Progressive Matrices and 4 subtests of the Wechsler-Bellevue Performance Scale were given to 173 left hemisphere patients subdivided according to presence/absence, type (fluent/non-fluent) and severity (moderate/severe) of aphasia. Constructive and ideomotor apraxia scores and CT scan data of each subject entered the statistical analysis. Factors significant in producing a low score on Progressive Matrices and Wechsler-Bellevue were presence of aphasia and constructive apraxia. Site and size of lesion per se failed to account for the intelligence scores. The relationship between aphasia, apraxia, intelligence test scores, and CT scan data were discussed in an attempt to clarify the meaning of these low intelligence test scores in aphasics and to assess the underlying roles of the brain lesions in this deficit. It appears that there are a number of methodological difficulties complicating interpretation of the intellectual deficit based on the Progressive Matrices and Wechsler-Bellevue scores, since performance on these tests is adversely affected by both aphasia and apraxia
Lexical and semantic factors influencing picture naming in aphasia
No full textPicture naming requires early visual analysis, accessing stored structural knowledge, semantic activation, and lexical retrieval. We tested the effect of perceptual, lexical, and semantic variables on the performance of aphasics in picture naming and assessed prevalence of natural categories vs artifact dissociations. Forty-nine aphasics were asked to name 60 pictures, from three natural (animals, fruits, and vegetables) and three artificial categories (tools, furniture, and vehicles). For each item visual (drawing complexity, image agreement), semantic (prototypicality, concept familiarity) and lexical variables (word frequency, name agreement) were available. The effect of these variables showed individual differences; altogether, visual complexity had little influence, whereas lexical and semantic variables were more influential. Name agreement was most important, followed by word frequency. On a multiple single case analysis 10 patients (20%) showed a natural/artificial category dissociation. Five of the six subjects faring better with artifacts were males, and all of four patients faring better with natural categories were females, interpretations of this finding are discussed
Different basic components in the performance of Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics on the Colour-Figure Matching test
No full textIt is known that focal damage of the left hemisphere causes poor performances in a number of tasks devoid of overt verbal connotation, often referred to as "non-verbal intelligence", "association" or "abstract attitude" tasks. However, it is not clear whether the existence of a unitary basic functional defect to account for the faulty performances outlined above can be supposed. In this investigation we have compared the behaviour of left-hemisphere damaged patients grouped according to aphasia type and have studied the extent to which two different, widely used tests of this supposed "non-verbal basic ability" (i.e. the Weigl Sorting Test and the Raven Progressive Matrices) overlap in their predictive power of the performance of a non-verbal association task, i.e. the Colour-Figure Matching Test. Notwithstanding the identical level of performance in the three tests between groups having different aphasia types, a clear-cut dissociation was found between Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics; in the former group the Colour-Figure Matching Test was highly correlated only with Weigl Sorting Test and in the latter only with Progressive Matrices. The conclusions are that in this case the breakdown of non-verbal basic resources does not coincide in patients with different types of aphasia, and the hypothesis of the existence of a unitary basic defect caused by left hemisphere damage is not in line with our findings
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Integration of lexical and sublexical processing in the spelling of regular words: a multiple single-case study in Italian patients
No full textIn this study we investigated 12 cases of "mixed dysgraphia", a spelling impairment where regular words are spelt better than either ambiguous words or regular non-words. Two explanations of mixed dysgraphia were formerly offered by Luzzatti et al. (1998): (i) a double functional lesion of the orthographic output lexicon (or damage to its access) and of the acoustic-to-phonological conversion; and (ii) some kind of interaction/summation between lexical and sublexical spelling routes when processing regular words. We first analysed whether a double functional lesion was sufficient to explain the mixed dysgraphia, checking acoustic-to-phonological conversion by means of the repetition of words and non-words: the answer was positive in five cases and uncertain in three. We tested the remaining four cases to see if there was an interaction between lexical and sublexical processing of regular words, quantifying for each patient, on a probabilistic basis, the separate contribution of the residual lexical and sublexical resources. We investigated whether the processing along these routes was simultaneous but independent ("independent cooperation") or if instead there was "interaction", i.e., the simultaneous activity led to an added increase of efficiency over and above the mere combination of separate success probabilities. For one case the processing along the two routes was independent, in the other three cases an interaction resulted. Following the same approach, we found that for the five cases with a double functional lesion, the observed success on regular word spelling was higher than that expected on a probabilistic basis, but the interpretation of this finding was different
Integration of lexical and sub-lexical processing in the spelling of regular words : a multiple single-case study of dysgraphia in Italian patients
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