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Journal of Experimental Psychology.... Sep 2023While our perceptual experience seems to unfold continuously over time, episodic memory preserves distinct events for storage and recollection. Previous work shows that...
While our perceptual experience seems to unfold continuously over time, episodic memory preserves distinct events for storage and recollection. Previous work shows that stability in encoding context serves to temporally bind individual items into sequential composite events. This phenomenon has been almost exclusively studied using visual and spatial memory paradigms. Here we adapt these paradigms to test the role of speaker regularity for event segmentation of complex auditory information. The results of our auditory paradigm replicate the findings in other sensory modalities-finding greater within-event temporal memory for items within speaker-bound events and greater source memory for items at speaker or event transitions. The task we use significantly extends the ecological validity of past paradigms by allowing participants to encode the stimuli without any suggestions on the part of the experimenter. This unique property of our design reveals that, while memory performance is strongly dependent on self-reported mnemonic strategy, behavioral effects associated with event segmentation are robust to changes in mnemonic strategy. Finally, we consider the effect of serial position on segmentation effects during encoding and present a modeling approach to estimate the independent contribution of event segmentation. These findings provide several lines of evidence suggesting that contextual stability in perceptual features drives segmentation during word listening and supports a modality-independent role for mechanisms involved in event segmentation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
Topics: Humans; Speech; Memory, Episodic; Cognition; Auditory Perception; Spatial Memory
PubMed: 35708938
DOI: 10.1037/xlm0001150 -
Journal of Neurophysiology Dec 2023Our aims were to ) examine the neuromuscular control of swallowing and speech in children with unilateral cerebral palsy (UCP) compared with typically developing...
Our aims were to ) examine the neuromuscular control of swallowing and speech in children with unilateral cerebral palsy (UCP) compared with typically developing children (TDC), ) determine shared and separate neuromuscular underpinnings of the two functions, and ) explore the relationship between this control and behavioral outcomes in UCP. Surface electromyography (sEMG) was used to record muscle activity from the submental and superior and inferior orbicularis oris muscles during standardized swallowing and speech tasks. The variables examined were normalized mean amplitude, time to peak amplitude, and bilateral synchrony. Swallowing and speech were evaluated using standard clinical measures. Sixteen children with UCP and 16 TDC participated (7-12 yr). Children with UCP demonstrated higher normalized mean amplitude and longer time to peak amplitude across tasks than TDC ( < 0.01; and < 0.02) and decreased bilateral synchrony than TDC for swallows ( < 0.01). Both shared and distinctive neuromuscular patterns were observed between swallowing and speech. In UCP, higher upper lip amplitude during swallows was associated with shorter normalized mealtime durations, whereas higher submental bilateral synchrony was related to longer mealtime durations. Children with UCP demonstrate neuromuscular adaptations for swallowing and speech, which should be further evaluated for potential treatment targets. Furthermore, both shared and distinctive neuromuscular underpinnings between the two functions are documented. Systematically studying the swallowing and speech of children with UCP is new and noteworthy. We found that they demonstrate neuromuscular adaptations for swallowing and speech compared with typically developing peers. We examined swallowing and speech using carefully designed tasks, similar in motor complexity, which allowed us to directly compare patterns. We found shared and distinctive neuromuscular patterns between swallowing and speech.
Topics: Child; Humans; Deglutition; Cerebral Palsy; Speech; Electromyography; Facial Muscles
PubMed: 37877193
DOI: 10.1152/jn.00502.2022 -
Journal of Speech, Language, and... Aug 2023Speech perception is a probabilistic process, integrating bottom-up and top-down sources of information, and the frequency and phonological neighborhood of a word can...
PURPOSE
Speech perception is a probabilistic process, integrating bottom-up and top-down sources of information, and the frequency and phonological neighborhood of a word can predict how well it is perceived. In addition to asking how intelligible speakers are, it is important to ask how intelligible individual words are. We examined whether lexical features of words influenced intelligibility in young children. In particular, we applied the neighborhood activation model, which posits that a word's frequency and the overall frequency of a word's phonological competitors jointly affect the intelligibility of a word.
METHOD
We measured the intelligibility of 165 children between 30 and 47 months in age on 38 different single words. We performed an item response analysis using generalized mixed-effects logistic regression, adding word-level characteristics (target frequency, neighborhood competition, motor complexity, and phonotactic probability) as predictors of intelligibility.
RESULTS
There was considerable variation among the words and the children, but between-word variability was larger in magnitude than between-child variability. There was a clear positive effect of target word frequency and a negative effect of neighborhood competition. We did not find a clear negative effect of motor complexity, and phonotactic probability did not have any effect on intelligibility.
CONCLUSION
Word frequency and neighborhood competition both had an effect on intelligibility in young children's speech, so listener expectations are an important factor in the selection of items for children's intelligibility assessment.
Topics: Humans; Child, Preschool; Adult; Speech; Linguistics; Cognition; Speech Perception; Logistic Models; Speech Intelligibility
PubMed: 36626389
DOI: 10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00294 -
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology Aug 2024Cheating is a pervasive unethical behavior. Existing research involving young children has mainly focused on contextual factors affecting cheating behavior, whereas...
Cheating is a pervasive unethical behavior. Existing research involving young children has mainly focused on contextual factors affecting cheating behavior, whereas cognitive factors have been relatively understudied. This study investigated the unique role of verbal and performance intelligence on young children's cheating behavior (N = 50; mean age = 5.73 years; 25 boys). Bootstrapping hierarchical logistic regression showed that children's Verbal IQ scores were significantly and negatively correlated with their cheating behavior above and beyond the contributions of age, gender, and Performance IQ scores. Children with higher Verbal IQ scores were less inclined to cheat. However, neither children's Performance IQ nor their Total IQ scores had a significant and unique correlation with cheating. These findings suggest that intelligence plays a significant role in children's cheating but that this role is limited to verbal intelligence only. In addition, this study highlights the need for researchers to go beyond the contextual factors to study the early development of cheating behavior.
Topics: Humans; Male; Female; Intelligence; Child, Preschool; Child; Deception; Child Behavior; Verbal Behavior
PubMed: 38657522
DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105933 -
Attention, Perception & Psychophysics Jan 2024Listeners readily adapt to variation in non-native-accented speech, learning to disambiguate between talker-specific and accent-based variation. We asked (1) which...
Listeners readily adapt to variation in non-native-accented speech, learning to disambiguate between talker-specific and accent-based variation. We asked (1) which linguistic and indexical features of the spoken utterance are relevant for this learning to occur and (2) whether task-driven attention to these features affects the extent to which learning generalizes to novel utterances and voices. In two experiments, listeners heard English sentences (Experiment 1) or words (Experiment 2) produced by Spanish-accented talkers during an exposure phase. Listeners' attention was directed to lexical content (transcription), indexical cues (talker identification), or both (transcription + talker identification). In Experiment 1, listeners' test transcription of novel English sentences spoken by Spanish-accented talkers showed generalized perceptual learning to previously unheard voices and utterances for all training conditions. In Experiment 2, generalized learning occurred only in the transcription + talker identification condition, suggesting that attention to both linguistic and indexical cues optimizes listeners' ability to distinguish between individual talker- and group-based variation, especially with the reduced availability of sentence-length prosodic information. Collectively, these findings highlight the role of attentional processes in the encoding of speech input and underscore the interdependency of indexical and lexical characteristics in spoken language processing.
Topics: Humans; Speech; Speech Perception; Learning; Language; Linguistics
PubMed: 37872434
DOI: 10.3758/s13414-023-02790-6 -
Cortex; a Journal Devoted To the Study... Aug 2023In his classic account of dementia praecox Kraepelin reserved a few pages for a small number of psychotic patients with disorganized speech but who retained the ability... (Review)
Review
BACKGROUND
In his classic account of dementia praecox Kraepelin reserved a few pages for a small number of psychotic patients with disorganized speech but who retained the ability to cope with their daily lives.
CASE REPORT
A 49-year-old homemaker has been suffering from a continuous hallucinatory-delusional state since she was 24 years old. Her verbal and written language was chaotic and full of neologisms, but fluent and grammatically correct. Speech disorganization was roughly proportional to the need to express ideas and thoughts through creative speech. She followed verbal, written, and visuo-gestural commands and flawlessly repeated words and sentences of variable length. She read aloud and discussed the news properly. She ran the house, cooked for her relatives, and went to the supermarket and the bank alone. She knew the prices of common goods and handled money with ease. The unique coexistence of (i) chaotic speech, (ii) preservation of aural, written, and gestural comprehension, and (iii) organized non-verbal behavior, in patients (iv) in a chronic delusional-hallucinatory state is the hallmark of the syndrome of "schizophasia" originally described by Kraepelin. The main features of Kraepelin's schizophasia are vividly illustrated by videos and photos of the patient during her daily life.
DISCUSSION
The differential diagnosis of schizophasia is reviewed, especially with the sensory aphasias (Wernicke's and transcortical), from which the confusional speech of our patient was differentiated by her preserved ability to repeat and understand spoken and written language. Because her primary language abilities were spared, the cardinal deficit seems to lie at the interface where thoughts and ideas are encoded into expressive language.
CONCLUSION
The expression "Kraepelin's schizophasia" should be restricted to the speech-behavioral dissociation first observed by Kraepelin in chronic psychotic patients. The term "schizophasia", in turn, should be kept as a generic designation for any language alteration in schizophrenia.
Topics: Humans; Female; Young Adult; Adult; Middle Aged; Activities of Daily Living; Comprehension; Speech; Schizophrenia; Hallucinations
PubMed: 37290345
DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.04.010 -
Language, Speech, and Hearing Services... Jul 2023The purpose of this tutorial is to guide practitioners to a critical praxis of speech, language, and hearing. This tutorial provides a foundational knowledge of critical... (Review)
Review
PURPOSE
The purpose of this tutorial is to guide practitioners to a critical praxis of speech, language, and hearing. This tutorial provides a foundational knowledge of critical theory as an approach to framing, conceptualizing, and interpreting phenomena and demonstrates its application to the speech, language, and hearing profession.
METHOD
This tutorial reviews critical theory as a category of frameworks that challenge existing power structures and provides a critical analysis of the profession's approach to language using a raciolinguistic framework. Questions are included for the reader to guide self-reflection and preparation for enacting a critical praxis oriented toward justice. Recommended readings are provided for the reader to continue the journey beyond these pages.
RESULTS
The author presents a critical praxis of speech, language, and hearing, drawing directly from two additional critical frameworks: Black fugitivity and culturally sustaining pedagogy. This critical praxis is discussed within the context of three major areas-activism, assessment, and intervention-with a reconsideration of how to leverage skills, resources, and strategies in a way that centers (racial) identity formation and multimodal communication.
CONCLUSION
Next steps are suggested, and readers are invited to become theorists who continue to develop a critical praxis for their context.
SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.22312213.
Topics: Humans; Hearing; Hearing Tests; Language; Speech
PubMed: 37018746
DOI: 10.1044/2023_LSHSS-22-00134 -
The European Journal of Neuroscience Feb 2024Human speech is a particularly relevant acoustic stimulus for our species, due to its role of information transmission during communication. Speech is inherently a... (Review)
Review
Human speech is a particularly relevant acoustic stimulus for our species, due to its role of information transmission during communication. Speech is inherently a dynamic signal, and a recent line of research focused on neural activity following the temporal structure of speech. We review findings that characterise neural dynamics in the processing of continuous acoustics and that allow us to compare these dynamics with temporal aspects in human speech. We highlight properties and constraints that both neural and speech dynamics have, suggesting that auditory neural systems are optimised to process human speech. We then discuss the speech-specificity of neural dynamics and their potential mechanistic origins and summarise open questions in the field.
Topics: Humans; Speech; Acoustic Stimulation; Acoustics; Speech Perception
PubMed: 38151889
DOI: 10.1111/ejn.16221 -
Proceedings of the National Academy of... Oct 2023Speech production is a complex human function requiring continuous feedforward commands together with reafferent feedback processing. These processes are carried out by...
Speech production is a complex human function requiring continuous feedforward commands together with reafferent feedback processing. These processes are carried out by distinct frontal and temporal cortical networks, but the degree and timing of their recruitment and dynamics remain poorly understood. We present a deep learning architecture that translates neural signals recorded directly from the cortex to an interpretable representational space that can reconstruct speech. We leverage learned decoding networks to disentangle feedforward vs. feedback processing. Unlike prevailing models, we find a mixed cortical architecture in which frontal and temporal networks each process both feedforward and feedback information in tandem. We elucidate the timing of feedforward and feedback-related processing by quantifying the derived receptive fields. Our approach provides evidence for a surprisingly mixed cortical architecture of speech circuitry together with decoding advances that have important implications for neural prosthetics.
Topics: Humans; Speech; Feedback; Temporal Lobe; Acoustic Stimulation
PubMed: 37819985
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2300255120 -
International Journal of... Apr 2024This scoping review provides an overview of empirical studies investigating therapeutic relationships between speech-language pathologists (SLPs), clients, and... (Review)
Review
PURPOSE
This scoping review provides an overview of empirical studies investigating therapeutic relationships between speech-language pathologists (SLPs), clients, and caregivers across all ages and clinical areas, and identifies areas of future research.
METHOD
The Joanna Briggs Institute's (JBI) scoping review method was employed. Systematic searches were conducted across seven databases and four grey literature databases. Research published in English and German until 3 August 2020 was included. Data were extracted for the primary aim, terminology and theoretical foundations, research design, and focus. Central findings concerning the input-, process-, outcome-, and output-level of speech-language pathology were categorised.
RESULT
Of 5479 articles, 44 articles were included in the analysis. Psychotherapy was the leading discipline for the theoretical foundation and measurement of relationship quality. Most findings focused on therapeutic attitudes, qualities, and relational actions to build the basis of a positive therapeutic relationship. A small number of studies indicated connections between clinical outcomes and the quality of the relationships.
CONCLUSION
Future research needs to address precision of terminology, expansion of qualitative and quantitative research methods, development and psychometric examination of measuring instruments specific to SLPs and the development and evaluation of concepts to support professional relationship building in speech-language pathology training and everyday work.
Topics: Humans; Speech; Communication Disorders; Caregivers; Qualitative Research; Speech-Language Pathology
PubMed: 37074740
DOI: 10.1080/17549507.2023.2197182