Laura Manoiloff

Expanded norms for 400 experimental pictures in an Argentinean Spanish-speaking population.

The study of the cognitive processes in the production of language demands careful selection of stimuli and requires normative databases. The main goal of the present research was to collect normative data for the set of 400 figures taken from Cycowicz, Friedman, Rothstein, and Snodgrass (1997; including the 260 figures of Snodgrass & Vanderwart, 1980) using a sample of native Argentinean Spanish speakers. The pictures have been standardized on the following variables: name agreement, image agreement, familiarity, visual complexity, image variability, age of acquisition, and word association. The obtained norms were compared with the normative data of other studies in Spanish, English, and French. This comparison highlights the variability of some of the measures (e.g., name agreement in naming and verbal association) across the different studies and confirms the necessity of elaborating specific norms that are adapted to the studied population’s linguistic and sociocultural context. The norms described may be downloaded as supplemental materials for this article from http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.

Bilingualism and Cognitive Reserve: A Critical Overview and a Plea for Methodological Innovations

The decline of cognitive skills throughout healthy or pathological aging can be slowed down by experiences which foster cognitive reserve (CR). Recently, some studies on Alzheimers disease have suggested that CR may be enhanced by life-long bilingualism. However, the evidence is inconsistent and largely based on retrospective approaches featuring several methodological weaknesses. Some studies demonstrated at least 4 years of delay in dementia symptoms, while others did not find such an effect. Moreover, various methodological aspects vary from study to study. The present paper addresses contradictory findings, identifies possible lurking variables, and outlines methodological alternatives thereof. First, we characterize possible confounding factors that may have influenced extant results. Our focus is on the criteria to establish bilingualism, differences in sample design, the instruments used to examine cognitive skills, and the role of variables known to modulate life-long cognition. Second, we propose that these limitations could be largely circumvented through experimental approaches. Proficiency in the non-native language can be successfully assessed by combining subjective and objective measures; confounding variables which have been distinctively associated with certain bilingual groups (e.g., alcoholism, sleep disorders) can be targeted through relevant instruments; and cognitive status might be better tapped via robust cognitive screenings and executive batteries. Moreover, future research should incorporate tasks yielding predictable patterns of contrastive performance between bilinguals and monolinguals. Crucially, these include instruments which reveal bilingual disadvantages in vocabulary, null effects in working memory, and advantages in inhibitory control and other executive functions. Finally, paradigms tapping proactive interference (which assess the disruptive effect of long-term memory on newly learned information) could also offer useful data, since this phenomenon seems to be better managed by bilinguals and it becomes conspicuous in early stages of dementia. Such considerations may shed light not just on the relationship between bilingualism and CR, but also on more general mechanisms of cognitive compensation.

L’effet de fréquence dans l’accès aux propriétés phonologiques des noms d’objets

Resume La denomination d’images est une procedure privilegiee pour l’etude de la production du langage. En particulier, l’effet de frequence en denomination a ete considere comme la signature de l’acces au lexique mental. Toutefois, en raison de sa nature articulatoire, la reponse de denomination est tres sensible aux proprietes phonetiques du mot a produire, ce qui contraint son utilisation. Dans cet article, nous examinons l’effet de frequence dans l’acces lexical aux noms d’image en utilisant une tâche de detection de phoneme. Cette tâche necessite l’acces a la representation phonologique du nom de l’objet, mais pas son articulation. Nous trouvons un effet robuste de frequence. Deux experiences complementaires –identification d’objet visuel et categorisation semantique – nous permettent de supposer que le locus de l’effet de frequence est lexical.

Core Semantic Links or Lexical Associations: Assessing the Nature of Responses in Word Association Tasks

AbstractThe processes tapped by the widely-used word association (WA) paradigm remain a matter of debate: while some authors consider them as driven by lexical co-occurrences, others emphasize the role of meaning-based connections. To test these contrastive hypotheses, we analyzed responses in a WA task in terms of their normative defining features (those describing the object denoted by the cue word). Results indicate that 72.5% of the responses had medium-to-high coincidence with such defining semantic features. Moreover, 75.51% of responses had medium-to-high values of Relevance (a measure of the importance of the feature for construing a given concept). Furthermore, most responses (62.7%) referred to elements of the situation in which the concept usually appears, followed by sensory properties (e.g., color) of the denoted object (27.86%). These results suggest that the processes behind WA tasks involve a reactivation of the cue item’s semantic properties, particularly those most relevant to its core meaning.

LOCAL PSYCHOLINGUISTIC CONSIDERATIONS IN NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT: THE ARGENTINE SPANISH EXPERIENCE

11.89, 11.82) years before AD diagnosis, where the trajectories transitioned from non-significant increase in performance over time to significant moderate declines in performance. The respective second change points were 3.95 (95% CI: 2.91, 4.98) years and 5.68 (95% CI: 4.40, 6.97) years before AD diagnosis, where the trajectories transitioned from moderate decline to accelerated decline. For long delayed recall, the 1-change point model fits the data best, and the only change point was 6.31 (95% CI: 5.62, 7.00) years before AD diagnosis. Conclusions:CVLT measures of verbal episodic memory show changes in trajectories almost 12 years before AD diagnosis, suggesting their potential utility in early detection of individuals at risk for AD.

El bilingüismo como protección ante la demencia: Inconsistencias empíricas y nuevas propuestas metodológicas

Bilingualism and cognitive reserve: empirical inconsistencies and new methodological proposals. Cognitive decline throughout healthy or pathological aging can be slowed down by experiences which foster cognitive reserve. In this sense, some studies have suggested that bilingualism may delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. However, the evidence stems from retrospective approaches yielding contradictory results. The present paper addresses these findings, identifies possible lurking variables, and outlines methodological alternatives thereof. First, we characterize possible confounding factors, namely: the criteria to establish bilingualism, differences in sample design, the instruments used to examine cognitive skills, and variables known to modulate life-long cognition. Second, we propose that these limitations could be largely circumvented through experimental approaches and the use of adequate instruments to measure such variables. Moreover, future research should incorporate tasks yielding predictable patterns of contrastive performance between bilinguals and monolinguals (bilingual disadvantages in vocabulary, null effects in working memory, advantages in inhibitory control and other executive functions), and other which could offer valuable insights (e. g., proactive interference tasks). Such considerations may shed light not just on the relationship between bilingualism and cognitive reserve, but also on more general mechanisms of cognitive compensation.