Renata Meuter

Acquiring an Artificial Logographic Orthography: The Beneficial Effects of a Logographic L1 Background and Bilinguality

To date, studies have focused on the acquisition of alphabetic second languages in alphabetic first language (L1) users, demonstrating significant transfer effects. The present study examines the process from a reverse perspective, comparing logographic (Mandarin-Chinese) and alphabetic (English) L1 users in the acquisition of an artificial logographic script to determine whether similar language-specific advantageous transfer effects occurred. Chinese-English bilinguals, English-French bilinguals, and English monolinguals learned a small set of symbols (six nouns and six verbs) in an artificial logographic script. A lexical decision task on the artificial symbols revealed markedly faster response times in the Chinese-English bilinguals, indicating a logographic transfer effect suggestive of a language experience— specific advantage. A syntactic decision task evaluated the degree to which the new language was mastered beyond the single word level. No L1-specific transfer effects were found for artificial language strings. However, when carrying out the same task in the native language, both the Chinese-English and the English-French bilinguals outperformed the English monolinguals, indicative of a bilingual processing advantage. The results are discussed in relation to possible differences in processing styles relating to logographic versus alphabetic languages, variably involving visual versus phonological coding.

When and Why Threats Go Undetected: Impacts of Event Rate and Shift Length on Threat Detection Accuracy During Airport Baggage Screening.

Objective: We aimed to assess the impact of task demands and individual characteristics on threat detection in baggage screeners. Background: Airport security staff work under time constraints to ensure optimal threat detection. Understanding the impact of individual characteristics and task demands on performance is vital to ensure accurate threat detection. Method: We examined threat detection in baggage screeners as a function of event rate (i.e., number of bags per minute) and time on task across 4 months. We measured performance in terms of the accuracy of detection of Fictitious Threat Items (FTIs) randomly superimposed on X-ray images of real passenger bags. Results: Analyses of the percentage of correct FTI identifications (hits) show that longer shifts with high baggage throughput result in worse threat detection. Importantly, these significant performance decrements emerge within the first 10 min of these busy screening shifts only. Conclusion: Longer shift lengths, especially when combined with high baggage throughput, increase the likelihood that threats go undetected. Application: Shorter shift rotations, although perhaps difficult to implement during busy screening periods, would ensure more consistently high vigilance in baggage screeners and, therefore, optimal threat detection and passenger safety.

Bilingual Language Switching and the Frontal Lobes: Modulatory Control in Language Selection.

Bilinguals typically show a cost of switching between their two languages. When asked to name single numerals rapidly and unpredictably in one or the other language, nonbalanced bilinguals demonstrate markedly slower responses on switch trials. This language switching cost is consistently larger when switching to the speakers stronger, dominant language (L1), resulting in a crossover such that L 1 responses are slower. To ascertain the brain mechanisms mediating the control of language switching, switching was examined in a bilingual patient with frontal lobe damage and impaired control processes, FK. While FK showed RT language switching costs well within the normal range on successful switch trials into the dominant language, he made an inordinately high number of erroneous dominant language responses when required to switch from the dominant language to the nondominant language. In addition, FK showed comparatively greater difficulty in maintaining the nondominant language across trials. FKs deficits are attributed to problems in modulating inhibitory resources across trials in a dominant language system.

The acquisition of an artificial logographic script and bilingual working memory: Evidence for L1-specific orthographic processing skills transfer in Chinese–English bilinguals

Abstract Studies of orthographic skills transfer between languages focus mostly on working memory (WM) ability in alphabetic first language (L1) speakers when learning another, often alphabetically congruent, language. We report two studies that, instead, explored the transferability of L1-orthographic processing skills in WM in logographic-L1 and alphabetic-L1 speakers. English–French bilingual and English monolinguals (both alphabetic-L1) speakers and Chinese–English (logographic-L1) speakers learned a set of artificial logographs and associated meanings (Study 1). The logographs were used in WM tasks with and without concurrent articulatory or visuo-spatial suppression. The logographic-L1 bilinguals were markedly less affected by articulatory suppression than alphabetic-L1 monolinguals (who did not differ from their bilingual peers). Bilinguals overall were less affected by spatial interference, reflecting superior phonological processing skills or, conceivably, greater executive control. A comparison of span sizes for meaningful and meaningless logographs (Study 2) replicated these findings. However, the logographic-L1 bilinguals’ spans in L1 were measurably greater than those of their alphabetic-L1 (bilingual and monolingual) peers; a finding unaccounted for by faster articulation rates or differences in general intelligence. The overall pattern of results suggests an advantage (possibly perceptual) for logographic-L1 speakers, over and above the bilingual advantage also seen elsewhere in third language (L3) acquisition.

Improving the outcomes of foot and ankle surgery. Professional impact of the Australasian College of Podiatric Surgeons' audit tool

Background Surgery is an example of expanded practice scope that enhances podiatry and incorporates inter-professional collaboration. By 2050 demand for foot and ankle procedures is predicted to rise nationally by 61.9%. Performance management of this increase motivated the development of an online audit tool. Developed in collaboration with the Australasian College of Podiatric Surgeons (ACPS), the ACPS audit tool provides real-time data capture and reporting. It is the first audit tool designed in Australia to support and improve the outcomes of foot and ankle surgery.

'You don't know what's going on in there': a discursive analysis of midwifery hospital consultations

In contemporary Western society, the concept of risk is mostly linked related to negative or undesirable outcomes and used to explain unusual or abnormal events that have harmful consequences. Working in a poststructuralist framework, in this article we examine how risk shapes interactions between midwives and pregnant women in the context of public hospitals in Australia. We draw on data from an observational study of clinical encounters in three Australian hospitals between October 2014 and July 2015. The research teams recorded 83 health encounters and in this paper we draw on data from the recordings of 10 clinical consultations between 8 midwives and 10 pregnant women at various stages of gestation. We used these data to explore how a discourse of risk was mobilised through rhetorical strategies and practices of ‘hunting’ for the abnormal and attempts to control the body. Our findings demonstrate how a discourse of pregnancy and birth as risky operates within public hospital midwifery consultations. We found that in the midwifery consultations we recorded, pregnancy was constructed as a period of vulnerability and unpredictability. It was normalised through discursive practices of hunting for the abnormal and rhetorical strategies of attempting to control the body. Within this discourse, midwives occupied conflicting positions. They asserted that women, with the right support, were capable of spontaneous and intervention-free (pregnancy and) birth. Yet, they acted to enable medical professionals to assess a woman’s ability to give birth (un)assisted, or the potential for an adverse event. The women, while positioned as passive within the public health system, were positioned as active in surveilling themselves and responsible for taking steps to mitigate against adverse events.