Grammatical Reasoning Research Articles

Separating the relevant from the irrelevant: Factors influencing L1 student teachers’ ability to discern (ir)relevant arguments in time-pressured grammatical discussions

Identifying relevant information and evaluating evidence are considered characteristics of critical thinking. These skills are important for language teachers, for example in evaluating pupils’ grammatical reasoning in the context of grammar education. Therefore, the current study has examined whether Dutch language student teachers (N=298) in different educational tracks (Bachelor full-time, Bachelor part-time and Master) are able to distinguish relevant arguments from irrelevant (or incorrect) ones in two grammatical discussions. Results indicate that student teachers are better at evaluating relevant arguments in grammatical discussions than they are at evaluating irrelevant arguments. Multilevel analyses show that the factors partly explaining the Relevant Argument score are students’ education and their Need for Cognition. The factors that partly explain the Irrelevant Argument score on the other hand are the perceived difficulty of the task, and strikingly, age. The paper discusses explanations for these findings, as well as practical implications for teacher education.

Cognitive Performance changes during a 20-day Winter Military Training Course and the Following 10-day Recovery Period

ABSTRACT Introduction: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of a winter military field training course consisting of strenuous physical stressors (e.g. physical activity, sleep deprivation and cold weather) on cognitive performance among Finnish soldiers. Methods: Fifty-eight (age 19 ± 1 years, height 182 ± 6 cm, body mass 78.5 ± 7.2 kg) male soldiers took part in a 20-day military field training course in northern Finland. Cognitive performance was assessed before, during, and after the course four times on a tablet computer. Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) was used to assess soldier’s executive and inhibitory function. Baddeley’s 3-min reasoning task (BRT) was used to assess grammatical reasoning, and Change Blindness (CB) task was used to assess visual perception. Results: Strenuous winter field training had detrimental effects in all performance tests compared to baseline. SART response rate decreased 27.3% (p < 0.001), and BRT and CB task scores decreased 20.6% (p < 0.01) and 14.1% (p < .05), respectively. Conclusion: The present study showed a decline in soldier’s cognitive performance after 20-days of physically demanding winter military field training. To be able to optimise field training, it is important to be aware of how cognitive performance changes during military exercises and missions.

PROTECT Norge: Online assessment of potentially modifiable risk factors for dementia on cognitive performance in a Norwegian ageing cohort

AbstractBackgroundPROTECT Norge, a fully digital platform, aims to help determine the role of defined genetic, lifestyle and environmental factors on cognition, health and wellbeing in people 50+. Annual questionnaires on demographics, medical conditions and medication use, mental health and lifestyle are completed online. The current study aims to assess whether potentially modifiable risk factors for dementia as presented by the Lancet Commission by Livingston and colleagues (2020) are related to cognitive performance in cognitively healthy people aged 50 and above.MethodA total of 2349 participants completed the PROTECT Cognitive Test System, an online cognitive battery containing six tasks which assess visual episodic memory, spatial and working memory, verbal reasoning, visual attention and task switching. The following risk factors were included in our analysis: physical activity, alcohol use, smoking, social isolation, age, BMI, education, depression, high blood pressure, head trauma and hearing loss. Multiple hierarchical regression analysis was performed. Separate analyses were conducted with the average performance across three sessions for each of the six cognitive measures as the dependent variable. Independent variables were included into the model in a hierarchy based on known risk factors for dementia.ResultResults show that age was associated with reduced cognitive performance for all tasks (p&lt;0.001). In addition, for the digit span test, the risk factors were found to influence the test score were: smoking and previously diagnosed stroke. For the paired associate learning task, the only additional significant risk factor appeared to be gender, with male gender associated with poorer performance. For the grammatical reasoning task, the risk factors associated with lower scores were lower education, older age and smoking. For the switching Stroop test, the risk factors of lower scores were older age, smoking and previously diagnosed depression. For Trail‐making B test, the risk factors of lower scores were age, stroke and the history of heart disease.ConclusionThese preliminary results may improve our understanding of potentially modifiable risk factors for dementia and could inform the design and delivery of interventional trials as a mean to protect cognition in later life and to prevent or slow progression of cognitive decline.

Effects of energy balance on cognitive performance, risk-taking, ambulatory vigilance and mood during simulated military sustained operations (SUSOPS)

Sustained operations (SUSOPS) require military personnel to conduct combat and training operations while experiencing physical and cognitive stress and limited sleep. These operations are often conducted in a state of negative energy balance and are associated with degraded cognitive performance and mood. Whether maintaining energy balance can mitigate these declines is unclear. This randomized crossover study assessed the effects of energy balance on cognitive performance, risk-taking propensity, ambulatory vigilance, and mood during a simulated 72-h SUSOPS. MethodsTen male Soldiers (mean ± SE; 22.4 ± 1.7 y; body weight 87.3 ± 1.1 kg) completed two, 72-h simulated SUSOPS in random order, separated by 7 days of recovery. Each SUSOPS elicited ∼4500 kcal/d total energy expenditure and restricted sleep to 4 h/night. During SUSOPS, participants consumed either an energy-balanced or restricted diet that induced a 43 ± 3% energy deficit. A cognitive test battery was administered each morning and evening to assess: vigilance, working memory, grammatical reasoning, risk-taking propensity, and mood. Real-time ambulatory vigilance was assessed each morning, evening, and night via a wrist-worn monitoring device. ResultsParticipants exhibited heightened risk-taking propensity (p = 0.047) with lower self-reported self-control (p = 0.021) and fatigue (p = 0.013) during energy deficit compared to during energy balance. Vigilance accuracy (p < 0.001) and working memory (p = 0.040) performance decreased, and vigilance lapses increased (p < 0.001) during SUSOPS, but did not differ by diet. Percentage of correct responses to ambulatory vigilance stimuli varied during SUSOPS (p = 0.019) independent of diet, with generally poorer performance during the morning and night. Total mood disturbance (p = 0.001), fatigue (p < 0.001), tension (p = 0.003), and confusion (p = 0.036) increased whereas vigor decreased (p < 0.001) during SUSOPS, independent of diet. ConclusionProlonged physical activity combined with sleep restriction is associated with impaired vigilance, memory, and mood state. Under such conditions, maintaining energy balance prevents increased risk-taking and improves self-control, but does not improve other aspects of cognitive function or mood. Given the small sample in the present study, replication in a larger cohort is warranted.

Assessing cognitive effects of transportation noise on office workers with electroencephalography and performance

Open offices are prone to not only internal noise but also external traffic noise. Noise has been shown to have detrimental effects on cognition and task performance, yet current literature on the effects of noise in open offices lack clarity and the findings are often inconclusive. This study aims to explore the effects of different acoustic conditions in an office: (1) with traffic noise and (2) in quiet, on task performance, brain activity, and subjective ratings. Subjects were given cognitive tasks, such as grammatical reasoning, while wearing an electroencephalography (EEG) headset. Brain activity and performance were recorded after a training session. Recorded traffic noise was auralized in an anechoic chamber with a 32-loudspeaker array to simulate road, rail, and subsonic aircraft noise heard when sitting in an elevated office with open windows. After completion of the tasks in the two acoustic conditions, subjective surveys were conducted for several items including perceived performance and annoyance. A statistical analysis was conducted to study the effects of different acoustic conditions on cognitive task performance, EEG data, and subjective ratings. Study details and results will be presented.

Stress and the gut-brain axis: Cognitive performance, mood state, and biomarkers of blood-brain barrier and intestinal permeability following severe physical and psychological stress

BackgroundPhysical and psychological stress alter gut-brain axis activity, potentially causing intestinal barrier dysfunction that may, in turn, induce cognitive and mood impairments through exacerbated inflammation and blood brain barrier (BBB) permeability. These interactions are commonly studied in animals or artificial laboratory environments. However, military survival training provides an alternative and unique human model for studying the impacts of severe physical and psychological stress on the gut-brain axis in a realistic environment. PurposeTo determine changes in intestinal barrier and BBB permeability during stressful military survival training and identify relationships between those changes and markers of stress, inflammation, cognitive performance, and mood state. Materials and methodsSeventy-one male U.S. Marines (25.2 ± 2.6 years) were studied during Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) training. Measurements were conducted on day 2 of the 10-day classroom phase of training (PRE), following completion of the 7.5-day field-based simulation phase of the training (POST), and following a 27-day recovery period (REC). Fat-free mass (FFM) was measured to assess the overall physiologic impact of the training. Biomarkers of intestinal permeability (liposaccharide-binding protein [LBP]) and BBB permeability (S100 calcium-binding protein B [S100B]), stress (cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate [DHEA-S] epinephrine, norepinephrine) and inflammation (interleukin-6 [IL-6], high-sensitivity C-reactive protein [hsCRP]) were measured in blood. Cognitive performance was assessed by psychomotor vigilance (PVT) and grammatical reasoning (GR) tests, and mood state by the Profile of Mood States (total mood disturbance; TMD), General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), and Patient Health (PHQ-9) questionnaires. ResultsFFM, psychomotor vigilance, and LBP decreased from PRE to POST, while TMD, anxiety, and depression scores, and S100B, DHEA-S, IL-6, norepinephrine, and epinephrine concentrations all increased (all p ≤ 0.01). Increases in DHEA-S were associated with decreases in body mass (p = 0.015). Decreases in FFM were associated with decreases in LBP concentrations (p = 0.015), and both decreases in FFM and LBP were associated with increases in TMD and depression scores (all p < 0.05) but not with changes in cognitive performance. Conversely, increases in S100B concentrations were associated with decreases in psychomotor vigilance (p < 0.05) but not with changes in mood state or LBP concentrations. ConclusionsEvidence of increased intestinal permeability was not observed in this military survival training-based model of severe physical and psychological stress. However, increased BBB permeability was associated with stress and cognitive decline, while FFM loss was associated with mood disturbance, suggesting that distinct mechanisms may contribute to decrements in cognitive performance and mood state during the severe physical and psychological stress experienced during military survival training.

Linguistic metaconcepts can improve grammatical understanding in L1 education evidence from a Dutch quasi-experimental study.

This mixed-method quasi-experimental study examined whether metaconceptual grammar teaching impacts on (a) students' L1 grammatical understanding, (b) their 'blind' use of grammatical concepts and (c) their preference of using explicit grammatical concepts over everyday concepts in explaining grammatical problems. Previous research, involving single group pre-postintervention designs, found positive effects for metaconceptual interventions on secondary school students' grammatical reasoning ability, although a negative side effect seemed to be that some students started using grammatical concepts 'blindly' (i.e., in an inaccurate way). While there are thus important clues that metaconceptual grammar teaching may lead to increased grammatical understanding, there is a great need for more robust empirical research. The current study, involving 196 Dutch 14-year old pre-university students, is a methodological improvement of previous work, adopting a switching replications design. Bayesian multivariate analyses indicate medium to large effects from the metaconceptual intervention on students' grammatical understanding. The study found a similar effect of the intervention on students' ability to use explicit grammatical concepts over everyday concepts in tackling grammatical problems. No evidence for increased 'blind' concept use as a negative byproduct of the intervention was found. Additional qualitative analyses of in-intervention tasks provided further evidence for the effectiveness of metaconceptual interventions, and seemed to indicate that cases of blind concept use, rather than being a negative side effect, might actually be part of a gradual process of students' growing understanding of grammatical (meta)concepts. We discuss these findings in relation to previous work and conclude that linguistic metaconcepts can improve L1 grammatical understanding.

Cognition and elevated blood pressure in community‐dwelling older adults with subjective cognitive decline: A cross‐sectional exploratory study

AbstractBackgroundThe impact of blood pressure (BP) on cognition in older adults remains equivocal. We investigated the relationships between cognition (global and domain‐specific) and ambulatory blood pressure in older adults with subjective cognitive decline (SCD).MethodWe conducted a cross‐sectional exploratory analysis of data collected from 230 community‐dwelling older adults (age mean [SD]: 69.3 [7.2], 57.8% female) with self‐reported SCD. We assessed global cognitive functioning, memory, concentration, planning, and reasoning using the computer‐based Cambridge Brain Sciences battery. Assessment of 24‐hour BP was performed using an automated, ambulatory BP monitoring device (SpacelabsModel 90207). Ambulatory BP was measured every 30 minutes between 6am and 10pm, and hourly between 10pm and 6am. We employed hierarchical regression models to examine associations between 24‐hour systolic BP and cognition. Further, we conducted ANCOVAs exploring dose‐response relationships by stratifying our sample using clinical cut‐offs for normal (≤120 mmHg, n = 52), preclinical (121 to 135 mmHg, n = 119), and hypertensive (&gt;135 mmHg, n = 59) BP. All analyses were adjusted for age, sex, MoCA, years of education, and diagnosis of diabetes and/or hypertension.ResultIn our sample, 24‐hour systolic BP was negatively associated with reasoning scores (unstandardized B [95% CI] = ‐0.008 [‐0.016 to ‐0.001], R2Change = 0.016, p = 0.028). The dose‐response analysis revealed a main group effect (F[2,221] = 3.6, p = 0.029, ηp2= 0.032), with post‐hocpairwise comparisons indicating that individuals with normal BP levels outperformed those with preclinical (mean difference [95% CI] = 0.280 [0.068 to 0.492], p = 0.010), and hypertensive (0.265 [0.021 to 0.508], p = 0.034) BP levels. The tasks adopted to assess reasoning targeted specifically grammatical reasoning, conflict resolution, and deductive reasoning, which fall under the overall scope of executive function tasks. No other relevant associations or interactions were found.ConclusionIn this sample of older adults with SCD, 24‐hour systolic BP levels above optimal clinical parameters were negatively associated with cognitive reasoning performance. Future research should investigate whether interventions that target BP control could mitigate impairment on reasoning performance.

Neutral and negative mood induction in executive tasks of working memory

The mood induction paradigm has been an important tool for investigating the effects of negative emotional states on working memory (WM) executive functions. Though some evidence showed that negative mood has a differential effect on verbal and visuospatial WM, other findings did not report a similar effect. To explore this issue, we examined the negative mood’s impact on verbal and visuospatial WM executive tasks based on grammatical reasoning and visuospatial rotation. Participants with no anxiety or depression disorders performed the tasks before and after negative (n = 14) or neutral (n = 13) mood induction. Participants’ mood at the beginning and the end of the session was assessed by the Present Mood States List (LEAP) and word valence rating. The analyses showed changes in the emotional state of the negative group (ps < .03) but not of the neutral group (ps > .83) in the LEAP instrument. No significant differences between groups were observed in the WM tasks (ps > .33). Performance in the visuospatial WM task improved after mood induction for both groups (p < .05), possibly due to a practice effect. In sum, our findings challenge the view that negative mood modulates WM executive functions; thus, they were discussed considering the similarities and differences between studies that found negative mood effects on WM and those that did not find. Different WM tasks tap distinct processes and components, which may underlie behavioral effects of negative mood on WM tasks.

Perception and task performance under two simulated office background noise conditions

The acoustics of an open-office environment play an important role in people’s working performance. This study was conducted to investigate how task performance is affected by two simulated office noise environments: (1) recorded HVAC noise and (2) a series of intermittent noises, e.g., conversations, phone ringing, etc. These conditions were reproduced over a 32-loudspeaker array in an anechoic chamber to include realistic spatial placement of sound sources. Each subject was seated at the center of the array and asked to perform five cognitive tasks to evaluate effects on memory, reasoning, planning, and attention. The tasks were digit span, grammatical reasoning, tower of London, attention network test, and mental arithmetic. After each noise condition, the participants rated several items including annoyance and perceived performance. Heart rate variability (HRV) was also recorded using ECG sensors as a physiological measure of arousal. Baseline measurements were first obtained in silence, followed by a task training set in silence, and an actual test set in silence. A statistical analysis was used to investigate possible correlations between the acoustic conditions and the cognitive task results, perceptual ratings, and HRV data, respectively. Study details and the findings will be presented.

The Effects of Physical and Psychological Stress on Task Load Assesment and Grammatical Reasoning Among Special Forces Soldiers

We examined the effects of a stressful training course exercise on soldiers stress hormone (cortisol levels), subjective workload and grammatical reasoning. Saliva samples, Baddeley 3-minute reasoning test and NASA-TLX workload assessment were collected 10 minutes before the course (PRE measurement), immediately after the course (POST measurement) and 12 and 20 minutes after the course (Recovery 1 and Recovery 2 measurements). Workload was lowest in PPE-measurement, highest in POST-measurement immediately after the course and declined near to the PRE level during the recovery measurements. The levels of cortisol concentrations and grammatical reasoning test scores followed the same trend.

Impact Of Higher Aerobic Fitness On Neurocognitive Function During Simulated Military Operational Stress

Modern warfare involves a greater reliance on executive functions such as memory, recognition, and reasoning. Greater aerobic fitness has been associated with minimizing decrements in cognitive function during physical stress scenarios. PURPOSE: To determine the effect of aerobic fitness on higher order neurocognitive function during simulated military operational stress (SMOS). METHODS: Fifty-four male service members (SMs) (age: 26.4 ± 5.4 years, height: 177.9 ± 6.5 cm, weight: 85.2 ± 14.0 kg) took part in the 5 day/night protocol. After a day of familiarization testing (D0) including a treadmill VO2peak test, SMs completed one day of baseline testing (D1). On D2 and D3, sleep was restricted to 0100-0300 and 0500-0700 and SMs were allotted 50% of caloric needs based on estimated total energy expenditure. SMs were permitted to sleep from 2300-0700 and received 100% of their caloric needs all other days. Each afternoon after completion of a physical testing battery, SMs completed a neurocognitive test battery: Reading the Mind in the Eyes (RME) to measure emotional recognition, Match to Sample (MATCH) to assess short-term spatial memory, and Grammatical Reasoning (GRAM) to evaluate language-based logical reasoning. SMs were split into aerobic fitness tertiles based on VO2peak (LOW: < 45.0; MOD: 45.0-51.54; HIGH: > 51.54 mL·kg·min-1). Two-way mixed ANOVA and Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons were used to analyze group*day interaction on average reaction time (RT) and accuracy (ACC) for MATCH and GRAM, as well as RME ACC, across D1, D3, and D4 of the SMOS. RESULTS: There were no significant group*day interaction effects. However, a significant main effect of group was observed in both MATCH ACC (p = 0.023, ηp2 = 0.145) and GRAM ACC (p = 0.032, ηp2 = 0.131). On average, HIGH SMs exhibited 20% higher MATCH ACC (p = 0.046) and 25% higher GRAM ACC (p = 0.036) scores compared to LOW SMs. A main effect of time indicated MATCH (p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.263) and GRAM (p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.290) RT decreased throughout the SMOS. RME remained stable through the 5-day protocol. CONCLUSION: SMs with high aerobic fitness performed better at logical reasoning and spatial memory tasks. Increased aerobic fitness is influential to maintaining cognitive functions in response to the physical and cognitive stress observed in military operations.

The Grammatical Explanation of Sheikh Ismail Al-Hamidi (d. 1316 AH) in his footnote on the explanation of al-Kafrawi for the body of al-Ajrami

After the expansion of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula, there was a great deal of mixing of Arabs with non-Arabs who wanted to convert to Islam and learn its Arabic language, which led to the expansion of the Islamic environment and the spread of the phenomenon of melody. Distortion, and they were not only confined to the matter, but went beyond the matter to explain these provisions, and the rules in order to establish them in the minds of the learners, or to support an opinion they adopted, or to explain a phenomenon they saw. For this reason, the grammarians resorted to adhering to most of the rulings with causes that explain their causes, as is the case for most grammarians who adopted the faults in their writings and paid clear attention to them. Al-Ajromiya) to highlight a part of the efforts of Sheikh Ismail Al-Hamdi (may God have mercy on him) in this field, who took from his entourage to Al-Kafrawi as a model, and he completed two papers after an introduction in which we dealt with the life of Sheikh Ismail Al-Hamidi, and made the first topic to explain the concept of grammatical reasoning, and what was written about that It was authored, and the second topic deals with the efforts of Sheikh Ismail Al-Hamdi in this field.

Grammatical Reasoning in Mulhat Al-Arab by by Al-Hariri

Grammatical Reasoning in Mulhat Al-Arab by by Al-Hariri

‘X is the odd one out, because the other two are more about the farmland’ – Dutch L1 student teachers’ struggles to reason about grammar in odd one out tasks

Grammatical knowledge is an important part of L1 language education. Nevertheless, teachers find it challenging to convey an in-depth understanding of grammar to their students. Previous research suggests that understanding might be stimulated by focusing on grammatical reasoning. The current mixed-methods study explores the grammatical reasoning of 108 Dutch L1 student teachers’ in odd one out tasks, showing that student teachers struggle with such reasoning tasks. A multilevel regression analysis indicates that their level of grammatical understanding as measured by a Test of Grammatical Understanding (TGU) and the elaborateness of student teachers’ argumentation significantly predict the quality of their grammatical reasoning. Student teachers’ performances were also compared to 14 year old pre-university students’ performances (N = 120). Contrary to what was hypothesized, senior student teachers did not manage to outperform junior student teachers, nor did student teachers outperform pre-university students. The paper discusses plausible reasons for these findings and explores how teacher education might need to shift focus to better develop student teachers’ grammatical reasoning skills.

Cognitive Function in Adults with Enduring Anorexia Nervosa.

Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is a severe and often enduring disorder characterized by restriction of food intake, low body weight, fear of weight gain, and distorted body image. Investigations on cognition performance in AN patients have yielded conflicting results. Using an established and sensitive computerized cognitive test battery, we aimed to assess core aspects of cognitive function, including attention span, information processing, reasoning, working and episodic memory, in AN patients and controls. Patients were recruited from the Danish Prospective Longitudinal all-comer inclusion study in Eating Disorders (PROLED). Included were 26 individuals with AN and 36 healthy volunteers (HV). All were tested with CogTrack (an online cognitive assessment system) at baseline, and AN patients were tested again at a follow-up time point after weight increase (n = 13). At baseline, AN patients showed faster reaction times in the attention tasks, as well as increased accuracy in grammatical reasoning compared to HV. There were no differences in cognitive function between AN patients and HV in the other cognitive domains measured (sustained attention, working and episodic memory, speed of retrieval, and speed of grammatical reasoning). No differences were visible in the AN sample between baseline and follow-up. Performance did not correlate with any clinical variables in the AN sample. These findings supplement results from other studies suggesting increased concentration and reasoning accuracy in patients suffering from AN, who showed increased performance in cognitive tasks despite their illness.

الاعتراض على الاستدلال العقلي بسبب عدم صحة علته النحوية

Grammatical controversy is one of the topics that still need serious study and pause from researchers and scholars who study Arabic grammar in order to complete its image, and it is based on a strong leg, and a pillar that runs alongside grammatical applications, especially if it is linked to mental evidence, because it enriches the grammatical lesson with discussion The analysis and evidence and evaluation of evidence, and then assessed, and the statement of strong evidence from the weak, and the student helps to understand the particles that may be overlooked, and what is most evident in the grammatical reason that is the most important part in the measurement, and what is going on around it, and the grammarians were aware of all that the grammatical cause could add to the grammatical lesson and the understanding of grammatical rulings, whether the reason is a party to the measurement, or that the grammatical rule is interpreted (the explanation), and it is not surprising that there is a lot of objection to it in the place of dispute Grammar, and it is known that its response means the issue hesitates between nullity and weakness or anomalies.

التعليل النحوي عند الجندي في كتابه أنوار المصابيح شرح مصباح المطرّزي

This research aims to study the grammatical reasoning methods of Al-Jundi in his book "Anwar al-Misbah Explanation" of Misbah Al-Mutarrzi" that we are intending to investigate .The reason that represent as the grammatical cause and its employment, so the search was on three axes, preceded by an introduction, so the first axis dealt with the definition of the reason in the language and the terminology and the emergence of the reason in Arabic grammar, the second axis was devoted to studying the employment of the reason and its types among Arab grammarians. His attitudes towards the author of the text, then a conclusion in which we explained the most important results of the research.

Reading Outcomes in Elementary School–Age Children With Hearing Loss Who Use Listening and Spoken Language: A Preliminary Report

PurposeThis study examined reading outcomes and a comprehensive set of linguistic and cognitive factors considered to be associated with reading outcomes in children with hearing loss who use hearing aids or cochlear implants.MethodSeventeen children with bilateral, prelingual hearing loss who use listening and spoken language and attended Grades 3–5 at a private oral school for the deaf participated in this study. Children were administered 13 subtests from norm-referenced tests pertaining to reading outcomes (reading comprehension and decoding), linguistic factors (vocabulary, background information, literal inferencing, nonliteral inferencing, and grammatical knowledge), and cognitive factors (verbal working memory, short-term memory, phonological short-term memory, and analytical reasoning).ResultsPerformance of children with hearing loss was within normal ranges when compared to the normative means on all factors assessed except for nonword repetition. Furthermore, the performance of children with cochlear implants was comparable to that of the hearing aid users on all measures except for nonword repetition. Decoding was positively correlated with grammatical knowledge, analytical reasoning, and nonword repetition, whereas reading comprehension was positively correlated with grammatical knowledge, analytical reasoning, and inferencing.ConclusionsPreliminary findings from this study suggest that elementary school–age children with hearing loss demonstrated positive outcomes with respect to reading outcomes and other factors assessed except for the nonword repetition task. Findings suggest that a nonword repetition task may be used to flag children with hearing loss who may experience difficulties with decoding. Given that grammatical knowledge and analytical reasoning showed moderate-to-moderately strong correlation with both reading outcome measures, it is recommended that multicomponent reading intervention programs for elementary school–age children with hearing loss incorporate explicit instruction in these domains.

Does background sounds distort concentration and verbal reasoning performance in open-plan office?

Sound distraction is often seen as an enemy of productivity, especially in the open-plan office. The present study involves a laboratory experiment exploring the effect of six kinds of typical background sound in the office on concentration and verbal reasoning performance. The six different sound were classified into the music group, including running water sound (RW), pure classic music (PM), classic music with lyrics (ML), and noise group, including intelligible speech (IS), mechanical noise of keyboard and printer (MN), and telephone ring (TR). During the experiment, they were presented at three different levels: 40 dBA, 50 dBA, and 60 dBA. Additionally, ambient sound at 30 dBA was designed as the control group. A total of 79 subjects were recruited to conduct a neurobehavioral experiment. Feature match (FM) tests and grammatical reasoning (GR) tests were used respectively to detect subjects' concentration level and verbal reasoning performance, including accuracy and efficiency. After each subtest, subjects were invited to rate their activation and annoyance for the test. Results indicated that sound type and sound intensity both had significant effects on the accuracy and efficiency of concentration and verbal reasoning. 1) the noise group exhibited higher task performance loss than the music group, especially the IS. 2) High intensity generally brought higher accuracy and verbal reasoning loss. 3) Background sound brought higher activation while sound at 60 dBA brought a negative activation rating. 4)Background sound bright high annoyance when the intensity was over 50 dBA. 5) PM was more favorable for the enhancement of concentration and verbal reasoning than ML.