Galina Iakimova

On understanding idiomatic language : The salience hypothesis assessed by ERPs

Gioras [Giora, R., 1997. Understanding figurative and literal language: the Graded Salience Hypothesis. Cogn. Linguist. 7 (1), 183-206; Giora, R., 2003. On Our Mind: Salience Context and Figurative Language. Oxford Univ. Press, New York] Graded Salience Hypothesis states that more salient meanings-coded meanings foremost on our mind due to conventionality, frequency, familiarity, or prototypicality-are accessed faster than and reach sufficient levels of activation before less salient ones. This research addresses predictions derived from this model by examining the salience of familiar and predictable idioms, presented out of context. ERPs recorded from 30 subjects involved in reading and lexical decision tasks to (strongly/weakly) salient idioms and (figurative/literal) targets indicate that N400 amplitude was smaller for the last word of the strongly salient idioms than for the weakly salient idioms. Moreover, N400 amplitude of probes related to the salient meaning of strongly salient idioms was smaller than those of the 3 other conditions. In addition, response times to salient interpretations (the idiomatic meanings of highly salient idioms and the literal interpretations of less salient idioms) were shorter compared to the other conditions. These findings support Gioras Graded Salience Hypothesis. They show that salient meanings are accessed automatically, regardless of figurativity.

Facing the challenge of teaching emotions to individuals with low- and high-functioning autism using a new Serious game: a pilot study

BackgroundIt is widely accepted that emotion processing difficulties are involved in Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC). An increasing number of studies have focused on the development of training programs and have shown promising results. However, most of these programs are appropriate for individuals with high-functioning ASC (HFA) but exclude individuals with low-functioning ASC (LFA). We have developed a computer-based game called JeStiMulE based on logical skills to teach emotions to individuals with ASC, independently of their age, intellectual, verbal and academic level.The aim of the present study was to verify the usability of JeStiMulE (which is its adaptability, effectiveness and efficiency) on a heterogeneous ASC group. We hypothesized that after JeStiMulE training, a performance improvement would be found in emotion recognition tasks.MethodsA heterogeneous group of thirty-three children and adolescents with ASC received two one-hour JeStiMulE sessions per week over four weeks. In order to verify the usability of JeStiMulE, game data were collected for each participant. Furthermore, all participants were presented before and after training with five emotion recognition tasks, two including pictures of game avatars (faces and gestures) and three including pictures of real-life characters (faces, gestures and social scenes).ResultsDescriptive data showed suitable adaptability, effectiveness and efficiency of JeStiMulE. Results revealed a significant main effect of Session on avatars (ANOVA: F (1,32) = 98.48, P < .001) and on pictures of real-life characters (ANOVA: F (1,32) = 49.09, P < .001). A significant Session × Task × Emotion interaction was also found for avatars (ANOVA: F (6,192) = 2.84, P = .01). This triple interaction was close to significance for pictures of real-life characters (ANOVA: F (12,384) = 1.73, P = .057). Post-hoc analyses revealed that 30 out of 35 conditions found a significant increase after training.ConclusionsJeStiMulE appears to be a promising tool to teach emotion recognition not only to individuals with HFA but also those with LFA. JeStiMulE is thus based on ASC-specific skills, offering a model of logical processing of social information to compensate for difficulties with intuitive social processing.Trial registrationComité de Protection des Personnes Sud Méditerranée V (CPP): reference number 11.046 (https://cpp-sud-mediterranee-v.fr/).

Interpretation of ambiguous idiomatic statements in schizophrenic and depressive patients. Evidence for common and differential cognitive patterns.

Background: This study is concerned with the comprehension of ambiguous idiomatic statements in schizophrenic and depressive patients. Aims: Using a multiple-choice procedure, we simultaneously tested the presence of concrete and literal elements in the understanding of idiomatic statements. Method: Fourteen schizophrenic and 10 patients undergoing a major depressive episode as well as 14 control subjects completed a questionnaire with 10 idiomatic expressions with two possible interpretations (figurative and literal) of equivalent prominence. The participants had to choose one word linked with the different interpretations of these idioms (figurative, literal, concrete or inappropriate meaning). Results: The main results show that, in all the subjects, the contextual characteristics of the task induced a bias in favor of figurative interpretations despite the equivalent prominence of the literal interpretations of the idioms. The selection of responses relating to the concrete meaning of a single word in the idiom constituted a response mode common to both the schizophrenic and depressed patients. Despite the contextual constraints of the task, the schizophrenics opted for the literal responses more often than the other participants. The descriptive analysis argues in favor of a cognitive and clinical heterogeneity of schizophrenic patients. Conclusion: Results support the idea that literality and concreteness in idiomatic interpretation are possibly due to distinct cognitive impairments, though only some are specific to schizophrenic patients.

Behavioral measures and event-related potentials reveal different aspects of sentence processing and comprehension in patients with major depression

BACKGROUND We used the method of event-related potentials (ERPs) during standard semantic judgment task to explore the functional relationship between the deficit in semantic comprehension in women with depression and the potential dysfunction of brain processes mediating language comprehension. METHOD Eleven patients with major depression and 13 healthy participants were required to read congruous and incongruous sentences and to judge if they made sense. Accuracy and reaction times for semantic judgment were analyzed conjointly with the latency and the peak amplitudes of N100, P200, N400 and LPC components which were recorded at the final word of correctly judged sentences. RESULTS Patients were less accurate in semantic judgment in comparison to healthy participants. They exhibited slower reaction times and prolonged latency of the N400 and the LPC. A congruity effect was observed in both groups in P200, N400 and LPC interval. The peak amplitude of the ERP components did not differ between patients and healthy participants. In patients lower accuracy was correlated with more prolonged N400 latency and more negative N400 amplitude for congruous sentence endings. Age correlated with prolonged latency and amplitude reduction of the LPC component. LIMITATIONS Small number of participants, exclusively female patients. CONCLUSIONS Combined analyses of behavior and ERP measures of semantic processes in depression showed that semantic impairments, motor slowness and a delay in the timing of neural processes which mediate language comprehension might be functionally related and may be influenced by the age of the patients.

Semantic processing during morphological priming: An ERP study

Previous research has yielded conflicting results regarding the onset of semantic processing during morphological priming. The present study was designed to further explore the time-course of morphological processing using event-related potentials (ERPs). We conducted a primed lexical decision study comparing a morphological (LAVAGE - laver [washing - wash]), a semantic (LINGE - laver [laundry - wash]), an orthographic (LAVANDE - laver [lavender - wash]), and an unrelated control condition (HOSPICE - laver [nursing home - wash]), using the same targets across the four priming conditions. The behavioral data showed significant effects of morphological and semantic priming, with the magnitude of morphological priming being significantly larger than the magnitude of semantic priming. The ERP data revealed significant morphological but no semantic priming at 100-250 ms. Furthermore, a reduction of the N400 amplitude in the morphological condition compared to the semantic and orthographic condition demonstrates that the morphological priming effect was not entirely due to the semantic or orthographic overlap between the prime and the target. The present data reflect an early process of semantically blind morphological decomposition, and a later process of morpho-semantic decomposition, which we discuss in the context of recent morphological processing theories.

La compréhension des métaphores dans la schizophrénie et la dépression. Une approche expérimentale

Resume Cette etude experimentale comporte trois objectifs: tester de maniere simultanee et sans les confondre, la presence d’elements concrets et litteraux dans l’interpretation des metaphores chez les patients schizophrenes, etudier la specificite des troubles de l’acces au sens figure des patients schizophrenes en comparant leur profil de performances a celui d’un groupe de patients atteints de depression et a un groupe de sujets controles sans troubles psychiatriques, et enfin examiner l’influence de la severite de la symptomatologie des patients sur l’existence d’erreurs d’interpretation des metaphores. Vingt-cinq patients schizophrenes, dix-huit patients presentant un episode depressif majeur et vingt-deux sujets controles ont participe a l’etude. L’epreuve experimentale comportait dix expressions metaphoriques (eg « Ce milieu est un panier de crabes ») pour lesquelles les participants devaient choisir entre quatre reponses : une reponse figuree (eg « magouille »), une reponse litterale (eg « vivier »), une reponse concrete (eg « crustace ») et une reponse au hasard (eg « journal »). L’analyse des resultats a montre que les patients schizophrenes et deprimes interpretent plus souvent les metaphores au sens litteral et au sens concret que les sujets controles. En effet, les deux groupes de patients presentent un profil commun de performances constitue des biais d’interpretation en faveur du sens litteral (11 %) et du sens concret (4 %). L’analyse descriptive des resultats a montre une heterogeneite des performances en rapport avec les caracteristiques cliniques des patients. Les schizophrenes qui effectuent des erreurs d’interpretation des metaphores ont des troubles formels de la pensee plus severes que les schizophrenes qui n’ont jamais commis d’erreurs. Les deprimes qui commettent des erreurs ont une symptomatologie depressive et un ralentissement psychomoteur plus severes que ceux qui n’ont jamais commis d’erreurs. Cette epreuve experimentale constitue une etape preliminaire pertinente pouvant preciser les objectifs cliniques et experimentaux des recherches cognitives ulterieures axees sur une analyse fonctionnelle des troubles de l’acces au sens figure.

Behavioral and brain measures (N400) of semantic priming in patients with schizophrenia: test-retest effect in a longitudinal study.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether deficits in the behavioral and/or N400 semantic priming (SP) effect observed in patients with schizophrenia constitute a stable cognitive feature of the disorder or whether they may be influenced by the severity of each individuals symptomatology.

Emotional Meaning in Context in Relation to Hypomanic Personality Traits: An ERP Study.

The ability to integrate contextual information is important for the comprehension of emotional and social situations. While some studies have shown that emotional processes and social cognition are impaired in people with hypomanic personality trait, no results have been reported concerning the neurophysiological processes mediating the processing of emotional information during the integration of contextual social information in this population. We therefore chose to conduct an ERP study dealing with the integration of emotional information in a population with hypomanic personality trait. Healthy participants were evaluated using the Hypomanic Personality Scale (HPS), and ERPs were recorded during a linguistic task in which participants silently read sentence pairs describing short social situations. The first sentence implicitly conveyed the positive or negative emotional state of a character. The second sentence was emotionally congruent or incongruent with the first sentence. We analyzed the difference in the modulation of two components (N400 and LPC) in response to the emotional word present at the end of the “target” sentences as a function of the HPS score and the emotional valence of the context. Our results showed a possible modulation of the N400 component in response to both positive and negative context among the participants who scored high on the Mood Volatility subscale of the Hypomanic Personality Scale. These results seem to indicate that the participants with hypomanic personality traits exhibited specificities in the integration of emotions at the level of the early-mobilized neurocognitive processes (N400). Participants with hypomanic personality traits found it difficult to integrate negative emotional contexts, while simultaneously exhibiting an enhanced integration of positive emotional contexts.

Socio-demographic and Clinical Correlates of Facial Expression Recognition Disorder in the Euthymic Phase of Bipolar Patients

Objective: Bipolar patients show social cognitive disorders. The objective of this study is to review facial expression recognition (FER) disorders in bipolar patients (BP) and explore clinical heterogeneity factors that could affect them in the euthymic phase: socio-demographic level, clinical and changing characteristics of the disorder, history of suicide attempt, and abuse. Method: Thirty-four euthymic bipolar patients and 29 control subjects completed a computer task of explicit facial expression recognition and were clinically evaluated. Results: Compared with control subjects, BP patients show: a decrease in fear, anger, and disgust recognition; an extended reaction time for disgust, surprise and neutrality recognition; confusion between fear and surprise, anger and disgust, disgust and sadness, sadness and neutrality. In BP patients, age negatively affects anger and neutrality recognition, as opposed to education level which positively affects recognizing these emotions. The history of patient abuse negatively affects surprise and disgust recognition, and the number of suicide attempts negatively affects disgust and anger recognition. Conclusions: Cognitive heterogeneity in euthymic phase BP patients is affected by several factors inherent to bipolar disorder complexity that should be considered in social cognition study.

Peut-on faire une TCC sans thérapeute ? Composantes actives des TCC informatisées pour la dépression

OBJECTIVES Computer-delivered Cognitive Behavioral Therapies (C-CBT) are emerging as therapeutic techniques which contribute to overcome the barriers of health care access in adult populations with depression. The C-CBTs provide CBT techniques in a highly structured format comprising a number of educational lessons, homework, multimedia illustrations and supplementary materials via interactive computer interfaces. Programs are often administrated with a minimal or regular support provided by a clinician or a technician via email, telephone, online forums, or during face-to-face consultations. However, a lot of C-CBT is provided without any therapeutic support. Several reports showed that C-CBTs, both guided or unguided by a therapist, may be reliable and effective for patients with depression, and their use was recommended as part of the first step of the clinical care. The aim of the present qualitative review is to describe the operational format and functioning of five of the most cited unguided C-CBT programs for depression, to analyze their characteristics according to the CBTs principles, and to discuss the results of the randomized clinical trials (RCT) conducted to evaluate its effectiveness, adherence and users experience. METHODS We analyzed five C-CBTs: Beating The Blues (BTB), MoodGYM, Sadness, Deprexis and Overcoming Depression on the Internet (ODIN) and 22 randomized controlled studies according to 5 dimensions: General characteristics; Methodology, structure and organization; Specific modules, themes and techniques: Clinical indications, recruitment mode, type of users with depression, type and mode of therapists support, overall therapeutic effects, adherence and users experience. RESULTS The C-CBT have a secured free or pay-to-use access in different languages (English, German, Dutch, and Chinese) but not in French. The programs may be accessed at a medical center or at home via a CD-ROM or via an Internet connection. Some C-CBTs are very close to textual self-helps provided via an E-learning mode (Sadness, MoodGYM, ODIN), others adopt interactive software technologies (Deprexis, BTB), but their interactivity and the possibility of personalization is low. The C-CBTs use similar principles and techniques as in face-to -face CBT (e.g. self-evaluation, psychoeducation, cognitive restructuring, cognitive restructuring of schema, behavioral activation and agenda setting, problem solving techniques, communication and crisis management techniques, relaxation, principles of positive psychology and relapse prevention, positive reinforcement methods, motivational feedbacks, social learning, homework assignments and progress monitoring). The results of the 22 RCSs showed that both the effectiveness and the adherence of the unguided C-CBT is high with self-referred active help-seekers with major depression, but the latter is low with users who are depressed out-patients referred by general practitioners or clinicians. The presence of therapist support improves the effectiveness and the adherence of the C-CBT, especially in clinical out-patients. CONCLUSIONS In light of the existing insight of the advantages and the inconvenient of the C-CBT, the actual challenge is to find its optimal clinical indication and the modality of its effective use in clinical populations.