Browsing by Subject "Verbal Learning"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Influence of encoding difficulty, word frequency, and phonological regularity on age differences in word naming.
    (Experimental aging research, 2011-05) Allen, Philip A; Bucur, Barbara; Grabbe, Jeremy; Work, Tammy; Madden, David J
    It is presently unclear as to why older adults take longer than younger adults to recognize visually presented words. To examine this issue in more detail, the authors conducted two word-naming studies (Experiment 1: 20 older adults and 20 younger adults; Experiment 2: 60 older adults and 60 younger adults) to determine the relative effects of orthographic encoding (case type), lexical access (word frequency), and phonological regularity (regular vs. irregular phonology). The hypothesis was that older adults attempt to compensate for sensory and motor slowing by using progressively larger perceptual units (holistic encoding). However, if forced to use smaller perceptual units (e.g., by using mixed-case presentation), it was predicted that older adults would be particularly challenged. Older adults did show larger case-mixing effects than younger adults (suggesting that older adults' performances were especially poor when they were forced to use smaller perceptual units), but there were no age differences in word frequency or phonological regularity even though both age groups showed main effects for these variables. These results suggest that lexical access skill remains stable in the addressed (orthographic/semantic) and assembled (phonological) routes over the life span, but that older adults slow down in recognizing words because it takes them longer to normalize (perceptually "clean up") noisier sensory information.
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    Memorabeatlia: a naturalistic study of long-term memory.
    (Mem Cognit, 1990-03) Hyman, IE; Rubin, DC
    Seventy-six undergraduates were given the titles and first lines of Beatles' songs and asked to recall the songs. Seven hundred and four different undergraduates were cued with one line from each of 25 Beatles' songs and asked to recall the title. The probability of recalling a line was best predicted by the number of times a line was repeated in the song and how early the line first appeared in the song. The probability of cuing to the title was best predicted by whether the line shared words with the title. Although the subjects recalled only 21% of the lines, there were very few errors in recall, and the errors rarely violated the rhythmic, poetic, or thematic constraints of the songs. Acting together, these constraints can account for the near verbatim recall observed. Fourteen subjects, who transcribed one song, made fewer and different errors than the subjects who had recalled the song, indicating that the errors in recall were not primarily the result of errors in encoding.
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    Memory and learning for a novel written style.
    (Mem Cognit, 1998-07) Zervakis, J; Rubin, DC
    Subjects read and recalled a series of five short stories in one of four plot and style combinations. The stories were written in one of two styles that consisted of opposing clause orders (i.e., independent-dependent vs. dependent-independent), tense forms (i.e., past vs. present), and descriptor forms (modifier modifier vs. modifier as a noun). The subjects incorporated both plot and style characteristics into their recalls. Other subjects, who, after five recalls, either generated a new story or listed the rules that had been followed by the stories read, included the marked forms of the characteristics they learned more often, except for tense. The subjects read and recalled four stories of the same plot and style and then read and recalled a fifth story of the same plot and style or of one of the other three plot/style combinations. Ability to switch style depended on both the characteristic and the markedness.
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    Memory for prose in Korsakoff and schizophrenic populations.
    (The International journal of neuroscience, 1981-01) Rubin, DC; Olson, EH; Richter, M; Butters, N
    Twelve alcoholic Korsakoff patients, their 12 alcoholic controls, and 27 institutionalized schizophrenics and their 19 controls, recalled two stories. The clinical populations recalled approximately half as much as their controls, yet recalled the same parts of the stories as their controls. For both groups the ability to process simple prose does not seem to be severely impaired when what is recalled rather than how much is recalled is measured.
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    Puzzling thoughts for H. M.: can new semantic information be anchored to old semantic memories?
    (Neuropsychology, 2004-10) Skotko, Brian G; Kensinger, Elizabeth A; Locascio, Joseph J; Einstein, Gillian; Rubin, David C; Tupler, Larry A; Krendl, Anne; Corkin, Suzanne
    Researchers currently debate whether new semantic knowledge can be learned and retrieved despite extensive damage to medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures. The authors explored whether H. M., a patient with amnesia, could acquire new semantic information in the context of his lifelong hobby of solving crossword puzzles. First, H. M. was tested on a series of word-skills tests believed important in solving crosswords. He also completed 3 new crosswords: 1 puzzle testing pre-1953 knowledge, another testing post-1953 knowledge, and another combining the 2 by giving postoperative semantic clues for preoperative answers. From the results, the authors concluded that H. M. can acquire new semantic knowledge, at least temporarily, when he can anchor it to mental representations established preoperatively.
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    Specialized motor-driven dusp1 expression in the song systems of multiple lineages of vocal learning birds.
    (PLoS One, 2012) Horita, Haruhito; Kobayashi, Masahiko; Liu, Wan-Chun; Oka, Kotaro; Jarvis, Erich D; Wada, Kazuhiro
    Mechanisms for the evolution of convergent behavioral traits are largely unknown. Vocal learning is one such trait that evolved multiple times and is necessary in humans for the acquisition of spoken language. Among birds, vocal learning is evolved in songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds. Each time similar forebrain song nuclei specialized for vocal learning and production have evolved. This finding led to the hypothesis that the behavioral and neuroanatomical convergences for vocal learning could be associated with molecular convergence. We previously found that the neural activity-induced gene dual specificity phosphatase 1 (dusp1) was up-regulated in non-vocal circuits, specifically in sensory-input neurons of the thalamus and telencephalon; however, dusp1 was not up-regulated in higher order sensory neurons or motor circuits. Here we show that song motor nuclei are an exception to this pattern. The song nuclei of species from all known vocal learning avian lineages showed motor-driven up-regulation of dusp1 expression induced by singing. There was no detectable motor-driven dusp1 expression throughout the rest of the forebrain after non-vocal motor performance. This pattern contrasts with expression of the commonly studied activity-induced gene egr1, which shows motor-driven expression in song nuclei induced by singing, but also motor-driven expression in adjacent brain regions after non-vocal motor behaviors. In the vocal non-learning avian species, we found no detectable vocalizing-driven dusp1 expression in the forebrain. These findings suggest that independent evolutions of neural systems for vocal learning were accompanied by selection for specialized motor-driven expression of the dusp1 gene in those circuits. This specialized expression of dusp1 could potentially lead to differential regulation of dusp1-modulated molecular cascades in vocal learning circuits.
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    The abstraction of form in semantic categories.
    (Mem Cognit, 1991-01) Rubin, DC; Stoltzfus, ER; Wall, KL
    Undergraduates were asked to generate a name for a hypothetical new exemplar of a category. They produced names that had the same numbers of syllables, the same endings, and the same types of word stems as existing exemplars of that category. In addition, novel exemplars, each consisting of a nonsense syllable root and a prototypical ending, were accurately assigned to categories. The data demonstrate the abstraction and use of surface properties of words.