Stimulus Length Research Articles

Validating the Influences of Methodological Decisions on Assessing the Spatiotemporal Stability of Speech Movement Sequences Using Children's Speech Data.

Prior research introduced quantifiable effects of three methodological parameters (number of repetitions, stimulus length, and parsing error) on the spatiotemporal index (STI) using simulated data. Critically, these parameters often vary across studies. In this study, we validate these effects, which were previously only demonstrated via simulation, using children's speech data. Kinematic data were collected from 30 typically developing children and 15 children with developmental language disorder, all spanning the ages of 6-8 years. All children repeated the sentence "buy Bobby a puppy" multiple times. Using these data, experiments were designed to mirror the previous simulated experiments as closely as possible to assess the effects of analytic decisions on the STI. Experiment 1 manipulated number of repetitions, Experiment 2 manipulated stimulus length (or the number of movement units in the target phrase), and Experiment 3 manipulated precision of parsing of the articulatory trajectories. The findings of all three experiments closely mirror those of the prior simulation. Experiment 1 showed consistent underestimation of STI values from smaller repetition counts consistent with the theoretical model for all three participant groups. Experiment 2 found speech segments containing fewer movements yield lower STI values than longer ones. Finally, Experiment 3 showed even small parsing errors are found to significantly increase measured STI values. The results of this study are consistent with the findings of prior simulations in showing that the number of repetitions, length of stimuli, and amount of parsing error can all strongly influence the STI independent of behavioral factors. These results further confirm the importance of closely considering the design of experiments, which employ the STI.

Introducing the brief reverse correlation: An improved tool to assess visual representations

AbstractThe reverse correlation is an innovative method to capture visual representations (i.e., classification images, CIs) of social targets. However, this method necessitates many trials to compute high‐quality CIs, which poses important practical and economic challenges. We introduce a new version of the reverse correlation method, namely, the Brief‐RC. By increasing the number of stimuli (i.e., noisy faces) presented at each trial, the Brief‐RC improves the quality of individual (and average) CIs and lowers the overall task length. In two experiments, assessments by external judges confirmed that the new method delivers equally good (Experiment 1) or higher‐quality (Experiment 2) outcomes than the traditional method for the same number of trials, time length and number of stimuli. The informational values of CIs were also compared using a more objective metric (infoVal). Because the Brief‐RC facilitates the production of higher‐quality individual CIs, social psychology researchers may more easily address a series of relevant research questions.

Methods of Evaluating EEG Reactivity in Adult Intensive Care Units: A Review.

EEG reactivity (EEG-R) has become widely used in intensive care units for diagnosing and prognosticating patients with disorders of consciousness. Despite efforts toward standardization, including the establishment of terminology for critical care EEG in 2012, the processes of testing and interpreting EEG-R remain inconsistent. A review was conducted on PubMed following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Inclusion criteria consisted of articles published between January 2012, and November 2022, testing EEG-R on adult intensive care unit patients. Exclusion criteria included articles focused on highly specialized stimulation equipment or animal, basic science, or small case report studies. The Quality In Prognostic Studies tool was used to assess risk of bias. One hundred and five articles were identified, with 26 variables collected for each. EEG-R testing varied greatly, including the number of stimuli (range: 1-8; 26 total described), stimulus length (range: 2-30 seconds), length between stimuli (range: 10 seconds-5 minutes), frequency of stimulus application (range: 1-9), frequency of EEG-R testing (range: 1-3 times daily), EEG electrodes (range: 4-64), personnel testing EEG-R (range: neurophysiologists to nonexperts), and sedation protocols (range: discontinuing all sedation to no attempt). EEG-R interpretation widely varied, including EEG-R definitions and grading scales, personnel interpreting EEG-R (range: EEG specialists to nonneurologists), use of quantitative methods, EEG filters, and time to detect EEG-R poststimulation (range: 1-30 seconds). This study demonstrates the persistent heterogeneity of testing and interpreting EEG-R over the past decade, and contributing components were identified. Further many institutional efforts must be made toward standardization, focusing on the reproducibility and unification of these methods, and detailed documentation in the published literature.

Short- and long-term influences of repeated speech examples on segmentation in an unfamiliar language analog.

Because segments in fluent speech (e.g., words and phrases) are not reliably separated by pauses, a key task when listening to an unfamiliar language is to parse the incoming speech into segments to be learned. We aim to understand how working memory contributes to that segmentation learning. One cue to segmentation occurs when a segment is repeated in varying contexts. Cowan (Acta Psychologica, 77(2), 121-135, 1991) explored a language analog to study how segmentation occurs during immediate memory of speech, and found effects of segment presentation frequency, stimulus length, and serial position. Here we ask whether those effects extend from working memory to long-term memory. Overlapping segments were presented (e.g., mah bar slo mi and slo mi geh), varying numbers of times (presentation frequencies) to determine how varying the schedule of repetition patterns would affect perception of a unified test pattern formed from the two of them (e.g., mah bar slo mi geh). These constructions provide an analogy to how segments occur in varying contexts in speech. Participants were to indicate where they heard the boundaries between syllables. In immediate memory, the perceived boundaries more often reflected the most frequently presented pattern, and often reflected both pattern boundaries (in this example, mah bar / slo mi / geh). In a long-term memory follow-up, however, the original presentation frequencies only mattered for certain short test pattern configurations. We suggest that working memory for speech, without a semantic component, may be an incomplete basis to learn longer segments in an unfamiliar language.

The role of the age and gender, and the complexity of the syntactic unit in the perception of affective emotions in voice.

The study aimed to identify (1) whether the age and gender of listeners and the length of vocal stimuli affect emotion discrimination accuracy in voice; and (2) whether the determined level of expression of perceived affective emotions is age and gender-dependent. Thirty-two age-matched listeners listened to 270 semantically neutral voice samples produced in neutral, happy, and angry intonation by ten professional actors. The participants were required to categorize the auditory stimulus based on three options and judge the intensity of emotional expression in the sample using a customized tablet web interface. The discrimination accuracy of happy and angry emotions decreased with age, while accuracy in discriminating neutral emotions increased with age. Females rated the intensity level of perceived affective emotions higher than males across all linguistic units. These were: for angry emotions in words (z = -3.599, p < .001), phrases (z = -3.218, p = .001), and texts (z = -2.272, p = .023), for happy emotions in words (z = -5.799, p < .001), phrases (z = -4.706, p < .001), and texts (z = -2.699, p = .007). Accuracy in perceiving vocal expressions of emotions varies according to age and gender. Young adults are better at distinguishing happy and angry emotions than middle-aged adults, while middle-aged adults tend to categorize perceived affective emotions as neutral. Gender also plays a role, with females rating expressions of affective emotions in voices higher than males. Additionally, the length of voice stimuli impacts emotion discrimination accuracy.

The Impact of Stimulus Length in Tongue and Lip Movement Pattern Stability in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of stimulus signal length on tongue and lip motion pattern stability in speakers diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) compared to healthy controls. Electromagnetic articulography was used to derive articulatory motion patterns from individuals with mild (n = 27) and severe (n = 16) ALS and healthy controls (n = 25). The spatiotemporal index (STI) was used as a measure of articulatory stability. Two experiments were conducted to evaluate signal length effects on the STI: (a) the effect of the number of syllables on STI values and (b) increasing lengths of subcomponents of a single phrase. Two-way mixed analyses of variance were conducted to assess the effects of syllable length and group on the STI for the tongue tip (TT), tongue back (TB), and lower lip (LL). Experiment 1 showed a significant main effect of syllable length (TT, p < .001; TB, p < .001; and LL, p < .001) and group (TT, p = .037; TB, p = .007; and LL, p = .017). TB and LL stability was generally higher with speech stimuli that included a greater number of syllables. Articulatory variability was significantly higher in speakers diagnosed with ALS compared to healthy controls. Experiment 2 showed a significant main effect of length (TT, p < .001; TB, p = .015; and LL, p < .001), providing additional support that STI values tend to be greater when calculated on longer speech signals. Articulatory stability is influenced by the length of speech signals and manifests similarly in both healthy speakers and persons with ALS. TT stability may be significantly impacted by phonemic content due to greater movement flexibility. Compared to healthy controls, there was an increase in articulatory variability in those with ALS, which likely reflects deviations in speech motor control. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.24463924.

Word-level reading skills of Brazilian children with developmental language disorder

ABSTRACT Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) show a wide range of impairments, including poor pre-reading skills and decoding difficulties due to phonological deficits and such difficulties have significant repercussions on the acquisition of written language. However, evidence about reading processes and development is mainly available for English-speaking children with DLD, limiting our understanding of this process in a cross-linguistic manner. The orthographic characteristics of languages significantly influence the learning process of written code. Unlike English, Brazilian Portuguese has a transparent decoding system and its orthography presents a set of consistent, univocal grapheme-phoneme relations. The present study investigated whether the challenges reported in decoding for children with DLD in opaque languages hold for children with DLD who are speakers of Brazilian Portuguese and whether the length and type of stimuli influence the decoding skills of children with DLD differently than when compared to children with typical language development (TLD). Sixteen children with DLD between seven and ten years of age who are monolingual speakers of Brazilian Portuguese and 64 controls with TLD matched by gender, age, and socioeconomic status, with the children with DLD in a 4:1 ratio; participated in the study. All children performed a computerized task where they were asked to decode a linguistically balanced list of words and nonwords designed according to Brazilian Portuguese decoding rules. The present study provides substantial evidence that children with DLD who are speakers of Brazilian Portuguese have deficits in the acquisition of decoding and that the decoding profile of children with DLD is subject to multiple influences, not only with relation to the length and type of stimuli but also characteristics of the languages these children are being literate in, highlighting the multifactorial nature involved in the development of decoding.

Mechanism of perceptual transition: A study by dichotic presentation

The perceptual transition occurs when a person hears a repeated single word without pause, illusory changes of the physically unchanging word are induced. We have been studying the conditions under which perceptual transitions occur. So far, it is unclear whether the perceptual transition occurs in the auditory system or in the brain processing. To elucidate this, we examined whether the perceptual transition occurred upstream or downstream of the superior olivary complex by dichotic presentation. Thirteen Japanese subjects were presented with six Japanese words. There are three types of presentation methods: (1) diotic presentation, (2) diotic presentation with ISI = stimulus length, and (3) dichotic presentation to the left and right ears alternately. We measured the time (T) until the perceptual transition occurred. If T in (3) is close to T in (1), the perceptual transition is thought to occur upstream of the superior olivary complex, and if T in (3) is close to T in (2), it is thought to occur downstream of the superior olivary complex. The results in (3) were almost equal to those in (1), suggesting the possibility that it occurs upstream from the superior olivary complex.

The impact of phonological short-term memory impairment on verbal repetition in the logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia

ABSTRACT The logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia (lvPPA) is characterized mainly by anomia, production of phonological errors, and impairment in repetition of sentences. The functional origin of these language impairments is mainly attributed to the breakdown of phonological short-term memory. The present study examined the effects of phonological short-term memory impairment on language processing in lvPPA. In two studies, 11 participants with lvPPA and 11 healthy control participants were presented with repetition tasks in which the type and length of stimuli and the mode of administration were manipulated. Study 1 aimed to examine the influence of length and lexicality (words vs. pseudowords) on immediate and delayed repetition, whereas Study 2 aimed to examine the influence of length, syntactic complexity (nominalized vs. pronominalized sentences), and serial position on immediate sentence repetition. Study 1 showed that participants’ performance with lvPPA was impaired only on immediate repetition of five-syllable pseudowords and on delayed repetition of words and pseudowords. Study 2 showed that participants’ performance with lvPPA was impaired in the repetition of nominalized sentences where a recency effect was observed. Repetition of pronominalized sentences was also impaired in the lvPPA group. This study provides additional support for arguments regarding phonological short-term memory as a cause of language impairment in lvPPA. Clinically, the results of the study suggest that instruments for assessing repetition ability in lvPPA should include not only lists of short or long nominalized sentences, but also delayed repetition of words and pseudowords and pronominalized sentences.

Independent short- and long-term dependencies in perception.

Perception is biased by stimulus history. Both long-term effects such as the central-tendency bias (CTB) and short-term effects such as serial dependence (SD) have been described, but research into the two has remained largely separate. The sources of these effects, however, are highly correlated in stimulus statistics, which can result in a misinterpretation of experimental data. We compared CTB and SD in the perception of color and line length. Observers judged the relative hue or length of consecutive stimuli in a delayed-matching task. Two interstimulus intervals were used to investigate whether elapsed time or the number of stimulus occurrences was more important for SD. We estimated biases by fitting psychometric functions to the data split based on the history features, and we also fit generalized linear mixed models with either CTB, SD, or both included as regressors. We found biases to both recent stimulus history and the cumulative average of stimulus values for both color and line length judgments. The strength and pattern of each of the biases depended on whether all sources of bias were included in the analysis. Within the range of interstimulus intervals tested, the number of intervening stimuli was more important than elapsed time for SD. We conclude that both SD and CTB independently affect perceptual judgments, and that one effect is not an artifact caused by the other. Failing to consider both effects in data analysis can give an erroneous picture of the phenomenon under study.

The syllable as a fundamental sub-lexical unit in phonological paraphasias: evidence from Spanish-speaking aphasic patients

ABSTRACT Background Considering that the syllable is a well-defined unit in the Spanish language, we assume that it could be analyzed at the core of phonological paraphasias. Aims Identify if the characteristics of the Spanish syllable system are reflected in the production of phonological errors among Spanish-speaking aphasic patients. Methods & Procedures Twenty-four Spanish-speaking aphasic patients with different aetiology, severity, and type of aphasia participated in the study. We designed Word and Pseudoword Repetition Tasks controlling for stimuli length, syllable structure frequency, and syllable position. Outcomes & Results The production of paraphasias evidences an effect of syllable complexity and syllable frequency, since the CV syllable structure which is the simplest but also the most common one in Spanish, was more resistant to errors. Stimulus length and stimuli lexicality effects were evident since monosyllabic stimuli and words (opposed to pseudowords) triggered fewer errors, respectively. Also, we observed an interaction of length/lexicality, where polysyllabic pseudowords were related to a higher number of errors. Finally, results revealed a strong correlation between the relative frequency of syllable structures in Spanish and the percentage of syllable structures in phonemic paraphasias. Conclusions The repetition of words and pseudowords by these Spanish-speaking aphasic patients confirm that their phonological errors are related to the syllabic system of the Spanish language. This finding has implications when assessing Spanish-speaking aphasic patients.

A novel temperature-controlled laser system to uniformly activate cutaneous thermal receptors during movable thermal stimulation

Objective. Laser stimulators have been widely used in pain studies to selectively activate Aδ and C nociceptors without coactivation of mechanoreceptors. Temperature-controlled laser systems have been implemented with low-temperature variations during stimulations, however, these systems purely enabled stationary stimulation. This study aimed to implement, test and validate a new laser stimulation system that controls skin temperature by continuously adjusting laser output during stimulus movement to allow accurate investigation of tempo-spatial mechanisms in the nociceptive system. Approach. For validation, laser stimuli were delivered to the right forearm of eight healthy subjects using a diode laser. The laser beam was displaced across the skin to deliver a moving thermal stimulation to the skin surface. To test the function and feasibility of the system, different stimulation parameters were investigated involving two control modes (open-loop and closed-loop), three displacement velocities (5, 10 and 12 mm s−1 ), two intensities (high 46 °C and low 42 °C), two stimulus lengths (20 and 100 mm) and two directions (distal and proximal). Main results. During closed-loop control, the stimulation error and variation of stimulation temperatures were significantly smaller than during open-loop control. The standard deviation of stimulation temperatures increased significantly with stimulation intensity and displacement length. Significance. This study showed that more accurate, less variable laser stimulations were delivered to the skin using closed-loop control during a movable stimulus. The more uniform skin temperature during stimuli is likely to ensure a more uniform nociceptor activation.

An Efficient, Short Stimulus PANC-1 Cancer Cell Ablation and Electrothermal Therapy Driven by Hydrophobic Interactions.

Promising results in clinical studies have been demonstrated by the utilization of electrothermal agents (ETAs) in cancer therapy. However, a difficulty arises from the balance between facilitating the degradation of ETAs, and at the same time, increasing the electrothermal performance/stability required for highly efficient treatment. In this study, we controlled the thermal signature of the MoS2 by harnessing MoS2 nanostructures with M13 phage (MNM) via the structural assembling (hydrophobic interaction) phenomena and developed a combined PANC-1 cancer cell-MNM alternating current (AC)-stimulus framework for cancer cell ablation and electrothermal therapy. A percentage decrease in the cell viability of ~23% was achieved, as well as a degradation time of 2 weeks; a stimulus length of 100 μs was also achieved. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations revealed the assembling kinetics in integrated M13 phage-cancer cell protein systems and the structural origin of the hydrophobic interaction-enabled increase in thermal conduction. This study not only introduced an 'ideal' agent that avoided the limitations of ETAs but also provided a proof-of-concept application of MoS2-based materials in efficacious cancer therapy.

Longer duration intertrial intervals without visual stimuli have reinforcement value and increase the rate of reinforcement and punishment learning in computer-based discriminations in humans

In two experiments, we examined the motivational value of the duration of intertrial intervals and/or task delays on responding in a computer-based task in humans. In both experiments, four color stimuli with different response contingencies were displayed. Participants freely decided if they want to make a response or not towards each stimulus. The outcome that followed was either a putatively pleasant visual feedback (a “smiley face” display) or a blank screen, which was contingent on whether a response was made or withheld differently for different color stimuli. Our key manipulation was whether this blank screen outcome was longer or shorter than the visual feedback, that is whether the blank screen outcome made the next trial start sooner, later, or with the same delay as earning the visual feedback. We found 1) increased reinforced responding for encouraging visual feedback and 2) faster reinforcement and punishment learning to respond or withhold responding for this visual feedback if there was a longer duration blank screen outcome on trials in which people did not earn the visual feedback. This effect appeared to be driven more by the absolute length of the blank screen stimulus rather than whether it increased the delay until the start of the next trial more than the visual feedback. Additional research is needed to investigate boundary conditions that may determine when these blank screens do/do not have this motivational effect. Our findings suggest that manipulating task delay may be a way to increase motivation in laboratory studies in humans and possibly minimize individual differences in motivation due to differing sensitivity to demand characteristics in individual participants. However, additional research is needed to eliminate alternative explanations for this effect, such as an effect in which longer blank screen presentations led to better learning by preventing poorer learning that can be observed after massed trial presentations.

Inhibitory framing in hypersexual patients with Parkinson’s disease. An fMRI pilot study

Hypersexuality in medicated patients with PD is caused by an increased influence of motivational drive areas and a decreased influence of inhibitory control areas due to dopaminergic medication. In this pilot study, we test a newly developed paradigm investigating the influence of dopaminergic medication on brain activation elicited by sexual pictures with and without inhibitory contextual framing. Twenty PD patients with and without hypersexuality were examined with fMRI either OFF or ON standardized dopaminergic medication. The paradigm consisted of a priming phase where either a neutral context or an inhibitory context was presented. This priming phase was either followed by a sexual or a neutral target. Sexual, compared to neutral pictures resulted in a BOLD activation of various brain regions implicated in sexual processing. Hypersexual PD patients showed increased activity compared to PD controls in these regions. There was no relevant effect of medication between the two groups. The inhibitory context elicited less activation in inhibition-related areas in hypersexual PD, but had no influence on the perception of sexual cues. The paradigm partially worked: reactivity of motivational brain areas to sexual cues was increased in hypersexual PD and inhibitory contextual framing lead to decreased activation of inhibitory control areas in PD. We could not find a medication effect and the length of the inhibitory stimulus was not optimal to suppress reactivity to sexual cues. Our data provide new insights into the mechanisms of hypersexuality and warrant a replication with a greater cohort and an optimized stimulus length in the future.

Cross-dimensional magnitude interactions reflect statistical correlations among physical dimensions: Evidence from space-time interaction

Magnitudes of different physical dimensions have been assumed to be processed by a common metric in order to account for interactions between different dimensions (e.g., space, time). This paper tested a different hypothesis, that these cross-dimensional interactions reflect people's experience of statistical correlations among physical dimensions. In the experiment, we manipulated the correlation between space (length) and time (duration). A stimulus consisting of two vertical bars that demarcated a variable stimulus length was presented for a variable stimulus duration; participants were to reproduce either the stimulus length or the stimulus duration. Critically, to reproduce a stimulus length, participants held down the spacebar to grow or shrink (in a blocked design) a length to the stimulus length such that space (i.e. reproduced length) positively or negatively co-varied with time. Reproduced lengths did not vary as a function of stimulus duration under positive space-time correlation but decreased as a function of stimulus duration under negative space-time correlation; reproduced durations increased as a function of stimulus length under positive space-time correlation but this space-on-time effect appeared to be attenuated under negative space-time correlation. These findings are consistent with a Bayesian inference account whereby cross-dimensional interactions reflect people's prior belief/knowledge of cross-dimensional statistical correlation, which itself tunes to recent input.

MO290: Inhibition of the KDM4C and JMJD3 Histone Demethylases Alleviates the Tubular Renal Damage Triggered by Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress

Abstract BACKGROUND AND AIMS Alterations in protein homeostasis in tubular cells lead to endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress activating the unfolded protein response (UPR) pathway, which contributes to repair or aggravate the renal damage [1]. This pathway is initiated by three major protein sensors (IRE1α, PERK and ATF6) that activate their corresponding transcription factors (TF), XBP1, ATF4 and ATF6, respectively, to ultimately regulate the transcription of numerous genes essential for cell survival. However, an exacerbated activation of the UPR pathway can also lead to the expression of genes related to inflammation and fibrosis, cell death or autophagy contributing to perpetuate the renal damage [2]. The balance between these two processes (adaptive/maladaptive response) is mediated not only by the length and strength of the initial stimulus, but also by changes in the chromatin structure that may induce or repress gene transcription. Epigenetic changes are mainly mediated by the expression and recruitment of epigenetic enzymes, such as histone methyltransferases (HMTs) and demethylases (HDMs) to target genes in order to modify their expression. Thus, the aim of this study pursues to identify the epigenetic changes mediated by the histone methylation (H3K9 and H3K27) in the UPR pathway and to explore the role of the epigenetic drugs as potential treatments for kidney disease. METHOD The tubular epithelial cell line, HK2, was used to analyse the epigenetic changes in vitro before and after induction of ER stress mediated by Thapsigargin (Tg), an ER Ca2+ 2'-ATPase inhibitor and strongUPR inductor. Specific pharmacological inhibitors of the G9a and EZH2 HMTs, BIX-01 294 and GSK126, respectively, and of the JMJD3 and KDM4C HDMs, GSKJ4 and SD-70, respectively, or small interfering RNAs were used. The recruitment of these epigenetic enzymes and the presence of the H3K9me3 and H3K27me3 repressive histone marks were analysed by chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) and coimmunoprecipitation assays. RESULTS HK-2 treatment with the BIX-01 294 or GSK126 pharmacological inhibitors or specific gene silencing of the G9a and EZH2 enzymes reveals an increase of the expression of ATF4 and XBP1 TFs, without inducing changes in ATF6 transcription. Moreover, this effect is additive to the one observed with Tg, indicating that changes in the chromatin structure are required for a full transcription and UPR activation. These results correlated with a lower recruitment of G9a and EZH2, and decreased H3K9me3 and H3K27me3 levels at the promoter region of ATF4 and XBP1 genes, corresponding with the increased transcription of these TFs. G9a and EZH2 HMTs act in coordination, so inhibition of G9a significantly reduces the recruitment of EZH2 and H3K27me3 levels to the regulatory region of ATF4 and XBP1 genes, and vice versa with EZH2 inhibition. In addition, enrichment in the global acetylation levels at histone H3 and H4 was observed, cooperatively facilitating the opening of the chromatin and the accessibility to transcriptional regulators. In accordance with these results, we demonstrate that blockage of the JMJD3 and KDM4C enzymes, responsible for demethylation of H3K9me3 and H3K27me3 marks, respectively, using the SD-70 and GSKJ4 epigenetic drugs, inhibits ATF4 and XBP1 expression under ER stress conditions and, consequently, the triggering of a maladaptative response. CONCLUSION Changes in the chromatin dynamics mediated by the H3K9me3 and H3K27me3 histone marks are key to regulate the expression of the UPR transcription factors ATF4 and XBP1 after ER stress activation. Pharmacological treatment with the epigenetic drugs SD-70 and GSKJ4 blocks the expression of these TFs and thus, the activation of the pathophysiological processes that contribute to aggravate renal damage triggered by the UPR pathway activation. [1] Yan M., et al. Endoplasmic reticulum stress in ischemic and nephrotoxic acute kidney injury. Ann Med. 2018, 50: 381–390. [2] Hetz, C.; et al. Mechanisms, regulation and functions of the unfolded protein response. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2020, 21: 421–438.

Influences of Methodological Decisions on Assessing the Spatiotemporal Stability of Speech Movement Sequences.

The spatiotemporal index (STI) is a widely used approach for measuring speech pattern stability across multiple repetitions of a stimulus. In this study, we examine how methodological choices in the implementation of the STI (including the number of repetitions, length of stimuli, and parsing procedure) can affect its value. To evaluate how each methodological decision affects the STI, we use a synthetic data framework that allows for the generation of random productions of the template phrase "Buy Bobby a Puppy" at different stability levels. Within this framework, we conduct three experiments: Experiment 1 investigates the effects of the number of repetitions, Experiment 2 investigates the effects of stimulus length, and Experiment 3 investigates the effects of parsing errors. In Experiment 1, we observed that STI values based on fewer repetitions will systematically underestimate larger repetition estimates. Experiment 2 showed that STI values will tend to be higher when calculated on longer (multimovement) stimuli independent of any differences in the stability of the underlying speech patterns. Finally, in Experiment 3, we showed that even minor parsing errors (≈ 10 ms) increase the value of the STI. The results of this study illustrate that even minor choices in the implementation of the STI can have a noticeable impact on the resulting value. These findings highlight the care that needs to be taken when designing studies and comparing STI values across studies to ensure that different STI values are capturing real differences in motion pattern stability rather than trivial methodological variation.

Can Word-Word Space Facilitate L2 Chinese Reading: Evidence From the Two Empirical Studies by Advanced L2 Learners of Mandarin Chinese

The purpose of this article aims to analyze the effect of word-word space in written Chinese to advanced non-native speakers when they read and process Mandarin texts. The participants have performed one online reaction time experiment and another one offline pencil-paper test. The results indicate that the structure of word segmentation in written Chinese texts have play an effective role in sentences’ semantic processing, and the length and difficulty of sentences stimuli have also displayed significant function for their Chinese sentences processing. However, the results of offline test show that the combinational amount of segmental words have not affected the texts materials processed by advanced L2 participants. These results suggest that word boundary can facilitate L2 learners of Mandarin Chinese in processing text during their reading. Apart from theoretical implications, this article also proposes a new pedagogical approach to teaching text segmentation in Chinese, which can be useful in instructing Chinese as a second or foreign language.

Dopaminergic Basis of Spatial Deficits in Early Parkinson's Disease.

Dopaminergic mechanisms regulating cognitive and motor control were evaluated comparing visuoperceptual and perceptuomotor functions in Parkinson's disease (PD). The performance of PD patients (n = 40) was contrasted with healthy controls (n = 42) across two separate visits (on and off dopaminergic medications) on computerized tasks of perception and aiming to a target at variable stimulus lengths (4, 8, 12cm). Novel visuoperceptual tasks of length equivalence and width interval estimations without motor demands were compared with tasks estimating spatial deviation in movement termination. The findings support the presence of spatial deficits in early PD, more pronounced with increased discrimination difficulty, and with shorter stimulus lengths of 4cm for both visuoperceptual and perceptumotor functions. Dopaminergic medication had an adverse impact on visuoperceptual accuracy in particular for length equivalence estimations, in contrast with dopaminergic modulation of perceptuomotor functions that reduced angular displacements toward the target. The differential outcomes for spatial accuracy in perception versus movement termination in PD are consistent with involvement of the direct pathway and models of progressive loss of dopamine through corticostriatal loops. Future research should develop validated and sensitive standardized tests of perception and explore dopaminergic selective deficits in PD to optimize medication titration for motor and cognitive symptoms of the disease.