Cognitive Neuropsychology最新文献

Phonewriting involves a unique multitasking demand: writers monitor suggestions above the keyboard while typing and deciding whether to select them. We investigated how word suggestions affect orthographic processing during word production. French young adults wrote dictated words on a smartphone, in conditions with and without suggestions. Keystroke data revealed that word suggestions influenced processing time during movement execution, increasing production time for short words but reducing it for long words. Suggestions slowed down writing due to the concurrent execution of keystrokes and preparation for a potential shift to suggestion selection. The presence of suggestions also decreased the number of errors and corrections, particularly in long words. The participants did not rely on suggestions systematically but followed strategies: they used them more frequently for orthographically inconsistent and long words, often at syllable boundaries. These findings highlight the dual nature of word suggestions-as sources of interference and as external supports that relieve memory load and improve accuracy.

Prior neuropsychological work provides evidence for morphological complexity in the production of compounds, but questions remain about its locus. We investigate this here by comparing behavioral and ERP picture naming responses of English compounds when preceded by morphological, semantic, and phonological auditory primes. Morphological priming significantly speeded compound naming relative to other conditions, and ERPs showed differences in timing and distribution: morphological priming resulted in a reduced centro-posterior negativity, phonological priming resulted in a late-onset increased frontal negativity, and semantic priming showed only a numerical tendency towards an N400 reduction. These results are consistent with the view that compound production requires operations over morphosyntactic and morphophonological parts, both of which may be responsible for the systematic errors of compound production observed in many patients with aphasia. Such data provide further support for a shift away from a simple dichotomy between lexical activation and sentence production in models of aphasia.

Rapid turn-taking in conversation suggests that speakers plan part of their turn in advance, but evidence for this is scarce. Using context-driven picture naming, we examined whether (a) speakers preplan lexical-semantic and phonological information at the word level in constraining sentential contexts, and (b) phonological preplanning encompasses the whole word. Analysis of naming response times (RTs) showed that constraining contexts enable preplanning of both lexical-semantic and phonological representations (Experiment 1). Using a picture-word interference version of the same task (Experiment 2), we found that speakers preplan the phonological form of the whole word, however, only the subset of constraining trials with the shortest RTs indicated preplanning. The results confirm previous findings from turn-taking, which suggested that speakers can complete later stages of lexical access in advance, but also highlight that the presence of preplanning varies from trial to trial.

Disorders of speech production, including stuttering, are relatively common and need to be recognized early in childhood. Despite calls for clear symptom definitions when studying stuttering in languages other than English, there is currently no standardized tool available for assessing stuttering in Arabic. The distinct differences between Arabic and English can offer insights into language-specific influences on the manifestation of disfluency. This study investigates the impact of Arabic phonological characteristics on the occurrence of stuttering in children who stutter (CWS). Speech samples were collected from 16 Arabic-speaking children. Findings indicate that words produced with stuttering tend to have greater phonological complexity than those produced fluently. A logistic regression revealed that word shape was the most influential factor in predicting stuttering. The study findings could inform the diagnosis of stuttering among Arabic-speaking populations. The findings are discussed in comparison to previous research, with particular attention to the morphophonological features of Arabic.

Speech errors in typical and atypical populations provide an important empirical foundation for theories of speech production and their neural bases. Studies of consonant speech errors have provided important evidence for cascading activation, c.f. categorical selection, across linguistic representations. Specifically, consonant errors show a phonetic trace effect whereby the phonetic details of the errorful consonant retain an influence of the intended sound. In this paper, we extend an experimental paradigm for speech error elicitation to vowels. Results show that vowel errors are similar to consonants in that errors differ systematically from their canonical (non-error) counterparts on the dimensions of primary control in articulation, as indexed by formant measures. We also found that vowel errors were not consistently different from canonical productions on the dimension of duration. We discuss the implications of these results for models that implement cascading activation to relate speech output to higher levels of language production.

Previous studies have demonstrated that classifiers associated with nouns are activated during lexical access. Shape classifiers, a specific type, incorporate visual shape information. This study examined how visual shape information in classifiers is processed during the production of classifier-noun phrases by native Chinese speakers. Participants performed a picture-naming task using the blocked cyclic naming paradigm, where classifier congruency and shape similarity were manipulated. Behavioural results revealed a classifier congruency effect, with slower reaction times for classifier-incongruent conditions, and a shape interference effect, where classifiers with similar shapes slowed responses. EEG analysis showed that classifier-incongruent conditions elicited more positive voltage amplitudes than congruent ones, while shape-dissimilar conditions produced more negative amplitudes compared to shape-similar conditions after 300 ms post-stimulus. These findings indicated that classifiers were activated when producing noun phrases in a blocked cyclic naming paradigm. Moreover, visual shape information embedded in classifiers was processed during the production of classifier-noun phrases.

Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative syndrome characterized by prominent language symptoms. Distinguishing between PPA variants, particularly non-fluent and logopenic variants, remains challenging. Language production is a crucial aspect of diagnosing PPA, with confrontation naming tests being commonly used. However, there are limitations to the use of confrontation naming alone and it is still unclear how confrontation naming relates to (semi-)spontaneous language production. Additionally, most studies have focused on English-speaking patients. This bias hinders a thorough understanding of PPA, as symptoms may vary across languages. In a pre-registered study, 49 Dutch-speaking individuals with PPA and 21 controls completed confrontation naming and a picture description task, from which we derived nine linguistic variables. The percentage of nouns was the only linguistic variable differentiating between the non-fluent and logopenic variants, highlighting the challenge of distinguishing these variants, also in a language other than English. We found a moderate correlation between confrontation naming and the frequency of nouns produced semi-spontaneously for the logopenic variant only. Together, these findings underscore the relevance of semi-spontaneous language production as a complement to confrontation naming for a more complete understanding of production abilities in PPA.

Speech monitoring abilities vary among individuals with stroke-induced aphasia, with brain lesion location as a potential factor. Left posterior temporal cortex (pLTC) regions are thought to be central to lexical access. We tested whether pLTC lesions affect the medial frontal action monitoring system, as indexed by the Error-Related Negativity (ERN), which has been implicated in inner speech monitoring. Electroencephalography was recorded during picture naming in 11 individuals with pLTC lesions (4 from each of two institutions included in EEG analyses), 7 with lesions sparing the pLTC (6 included), and 20 matched controls (14 included). Individuals with pLTC lesions were slower and less accurate than other groups. Individuals with lesions sparing the pLTC showed the expected ERN; individuals with pLTC lesions did not. Therefore, the medial frontal monitoring mechanism may be compromised when regions central to lexical access are damaged, indicating that pLTC-medial frontal interactions may support inner speech monitoring.

Aphantasia is a form of neurodivergence characterized by an absence of voluntary mental imagery. This absence affects not only basic cognition but also the processing of complex semantic content such as object colour, which typically relies on both visual and verbal representations. According to the Dual Coding Theory (DCT), combining these representations enhances semantic processing. However, this advantage has not been fully investigated under cross-modal conditions. To address this, we tested 24 individuals with congenital aphantasia and 22 controls on object colour decision and retrieval tasks using picture and word stimuli. Unlike controls, individuals with aphantasia showed no benefit from picture-based learning when retrieving colour via words. While their accuracy was unimpaired, their response efficiency was reduced. These findings support DCT and demonstrate the importance of visual imagery in facilitating cross-modal retrieval of object colour under verbal conditions.

Dyslexia is a multifaceted condition with diverse manifestations, yet assessment tools too often target limited subtypes, creating diagnostic gaps. This study examines the progression of dyslexia-related reading errors across primary school in typically developing readers, using the Mariette, a French nonsense-text reading screener. Analysis of 812 French children (grades 1-5) revealed systematic decreases in error rates with age, following distinct developmental trajectories. Regularizations of irregular words, misapplication of contextual rules and misreading of digraphs predominated in early grades, while voicing errors nearly disappeared by Grade 2. Clinical testing of the Mariette with 18 struggling readers identified specific reading errors overlooked by standard dyslexia assessments. These findings demonstrate the value of precise error analysis for understanding developmental reading patterns and tailoring targeted educational interventions. By comparing typical and clinical populations, this research advances our understanding of dyslexia's cognitive mechanisms while advocating for more comprehensive diagnostic approaches.