Nonverbal Items Research Articles

Automatic item generation for non-verbal reasoning items

The purpose of this study is to generate non-verbal items for a visual reasoning test using templated-based automatic item generation (AIG). The fundamental research method involved following the three stages of template-based AIG. An item from the 2016 4th-grade entrance exam of the Science and Art Center (known as BİLSEM) was chosen as the parent item. A cognitive model and an item model were developed for non-verbal reasoning. Then, the items were generated using computer algorithms. For the first item model, 112 items were generated, and for the second item model, 1728 items were produced. The items were evaluated based on subject matter experts (SMEs). The SMEs indicated that the items met the criteria of one right answer, single content and behavior, not trivial content, and homogeneous choices. Additionally, SMEs' opinions determined that the items have varying item difficulty. The results obtained demonstrate the feasibility of AIG for creating an extensive item repository consisting of non-verbal visual reasoning items.

Assessing the subtitling of emotive reactions: a social semiotic approach

Abstract This article attempts to evaluate emotive meanings across languages and cultures expressed and elicited semiotically from viewers. It investigates the challenges of subtitling emotive feelings in the American film Homeless to Harvard (2003) into Arabic. It adopts Paul Thibault’s (2000. The multimodal transcription of a television advertisement: Theory and practice. In Anthony Baldry (ed.), Multimodality and multimediality in the distance learning age, 311–385. Campobasso: Palladino Editore) method of multimodal transcription and Feng and O’Halloran’s (2013. The multimodal representation of emotion in film: Integrating cognitive and semiotic approaches. Semiotica 197(1/4). 79–100) framework of the multimodal representation of emotion to formulate strategies for subtitling emotion from English into Arabic. Additionally, Feng and O’Halloran’s (2013) framework is adapted to show how stylistic choices (e.g., cinematography, music, soundtracks, etc.) and semiotic expressions can elicit emotion from viewers. The social semiotic model is employed to investigate how emotive representation is realized through verbal and non-verbal items. The findings showed that the filmmakers had properly used stylistic choices and various semiotic techniques to elicit emotion from the viewer derived from the emotion of the film’s heroine.

Developmental profiles of young children with autism spectrum disorder and global developmental delay: A study with the Griffiths III scales.

The purpose of this study was to identify developmental profiles associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and global developmental delay (DD) in pre-school aged Italian children. Developmental profiles were evaluated by means of a standardized tool widely used for the assessment of psychomotor development in early childhood, the Griffiths III scales, recently adapted and standardized for the Italian population. Specifically, we compared the Griffiths III profiles of children with ASD and DD (ASD + DD) with those of children with DD alone. Moreover, we inspected the psychometric function of single items by comparing children with ASD + DD and children with DD with typically developing (TD) children from the Griffiths III normative sample. In this way, we aimed to isolate the effects of each diagnostic class on psychomotor abilities and on the psychometric function of single items. The ASD + DD and DD groups were found to share the presence of lower age equivalent scores relative to their chronological age in all the developmental domains considered: Foundations of Learning, Language and Communication, Eye and Hand Coordination, Personal-Social-Emotional and Gross Motor Skills. However, the DD group displayed a homogeneous profile with similar levels of delay in all developmental domains, while children with ASD + DD exhibited relative weaknesses in the Language and Communication and Personal-Social-Emotional scales. The analysis of the psychometric function drawn for each item has confirmed different profiles in social-communicative and non-verbal items between the two diagnostic groups and in relation to TD normative sample. The Griffiths III is a valid psychometric tool for identifying atypical developmental profiles and its use may be recommended during the diagnostic process of ASD and DD, to detect specific strengths and weaknesses and guide person-centered treatment.

In search of a measure to investigate mental performance among children: Development of the mental speed test

AbstractProcessing speed is a component of general intelligence and an indicator of learning potential. There is a need for robust measures of mental speed based on contemporary theoretical developments. The current study addressed this need by proposing a mental speed test for children aged 60 to 96 months (5 to 8 years) and examining its psychometric properties. The test included indicators of perceptual speed, memory speed, reasoning speed, and fluency‐flexibility speed presented through nonverbal items administered individually using touchscreen tablets. After establishing gender non‐bias and concurrent validity with a contemporary intelligence test (i.e., ASIS, r = .59) with 107 children, the next administration included 373 children. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with subtest scores revealed a single‐factor structure accounting for 45% of the total variance. Additional data from 212 children were used to assess structural validity and gender bias, which showed acceptable goodness of fit, providing evidence of the validity and reliability of the new measure for further use.

Response time concealed information test using fillers in cybercrime and concealed identity scenarios

ABSTRACT The Response Time Concealed Information Test (RT-CIT) can reveal that a person recognises a relevant item (e.g., a murder weapon) among other control items, based on slower responses to the former compared to the latter ones. To date, the RT-CIT has been predominantly examined only in the context of scenarios that are very unlikely in real life, while sporadic assessment has shown that it suffers from low diagnostic accuracy in more realistic scenarios. In our study, we validated the RT-CIT in the new, realistic, and very topical mock scenario of a cybercrime (Study 1, n = 614; Study 2; n = 553), finding significant though moderate effects. At the same time (and expanded with a concealed identity scenario; Study 3, n = 250), we assessed the validity and generalizability of the filler items presented in the RT-CIT: We found similar diagnostic accuracies when using specific, generic, and even nonverbal items. However, the relatively low diagnostic accuracy in case of the cybercrime scenario reemphasizes the importance of assessments in realistic scenarios as well as the need for further improving the RT-CIT.

The Role of Executive Functions in Reading Comprehension by Adolescents with ADHD: The Case of Domain-General Versus Domain-Specific Functions

The present study explored whether poor executive functions (EF) underlying the difficulties of individuals with ADHD in reading comprehension (RC) are general or specific to the textual content they regulate. To address this question, adolescents with and without ADHD answered questions following the reading of texts and completed a series of tasks that assessed cognitive flexibility, updating and inhibition skills, using (a) non-verbal items, to assess a domain-general EF, (b) single written words, to assess verbal-specific EF, and (c) illustrated scenarios, to assess discourse-specific EF. Findings demonstrated that verbal and/or discourse measurements exhibited significant mediating effects beyond the contribution made by non-verbal measurements. When EF measurements of the same modality were computed as a single composite score, only the discourse measurement accounted for a significant mediating contribution. These findings suggest a domain-specific, or even a discourse-specific role of EF in RC of adolescents with ADHD, and bear implications for educational practice.

Memory Resilience in Alzheimer Disease With Primary Progressive Aphasia.

To determine whether memory is preserved longitudinally in primary progressive aphasia (PPA) associated with Alzheimer disease (AD) and to identify potential factors that maintain memory despite underlying neurofibrillary degeneration of mediotemporal memory areas. Longitudinal memory assessment was done in 17 patients with PPA with autopsy or biomarker evidence of AD (PPA-AD) and 14 patients with amnestic dementia of the Alzheimer type with AD at autopsy (DAT-AD). In PPA-AD, episodic memory, tested with nonverbal items, was preserved at the initial testing and showed no decline at retesting 2.35 ± 0.78 years later, at which time symptoms had been present for 6.26 ± 2.21 years. In contrast, language functions declined significantly during the same period. In DAT-AD, both verbal memory and language declined with equal severity. Although imaging showed asymmetric left-sided mediotemporal atrophy in PPA-AD, autopsy revealed bilateral hippocampo-entorhinal neurofibrillary degeneration at Braak stages V and VI. Compared to DAT-AD, however, the PPA-AD group had lower incidence of APOE ε4 and of mediotemporal TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) pathology. Memory preservation in PPA is not just an incidental finding at onset but a core feature that persists for years despite the hippocampo-entorhinal AD neuropathology that is as severe as that of DAT-AD. Asymmetry of mediotemporal atrophy and a lesser impact of APOE ε4 and of TDP-43 on the integrity of memory circuitry may constitute some of the factors underlying this resilience. Our results also suggest that current controversies on memory in PPA-AD reflect inconsistencies in the diagnosis of logopenic PPA, the clinical variant most frequently associated with AD. NCT00537004 and NCT03371706.

Assessment of cognitive disorders in the Arabic language

There are up to 420 millions of people speaking Arabic all over the world and Arabic is the fourth spoken language. The Arab world consists of twelve countries in Asia and ten in Africa. Neuropsychological Tests (NPT) are available mainly in English or other Europeans languages. Arabic speaking clinicians are confronted to several difficulties as suitable standardized tools are lacking. Adaptation in Arabic implies not only a simple but also a back translation, piloting, and cultural adaptation of both verbal and nonverbal tasks. The Arab world is quite heterogeneous and adaptation of NPT poses several problems. Concerning for example the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (Grober et Buschke, 1988), the main problem faced by our team in Rabat was the unavailability of words frequency in Moroccan Arabic. It was thus necessary to study that first and then we were able to set lists of words classified according to their frequencies and semantic categories (Azdad et al., 2016). Adaptation of tests in Arabic must consider the linguistic diglossia (Fergusson, 1959). In the Arab countries, people use two variants of Arabic, a dialectal Arabic and a modern standard one. The dialect(s) spoken in everyday life differs from one country to another. The modern standard Arabic is used in school, books and mass media and is the same in all Arab countries. NPT should use the local dialect for the oral instructions because giving them in standard Arabic would be artificial, and the standard Arabic for the written language. This approach has been used for all the adaptations we performed until now, such as the Mini Mental State Examination (Folstein, 1975), the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) (Nasreddine, 2005), the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale (MDRS) (Mattis, 1976) and other tests. During our adaptation of the MMSE for example, one difficulty was to find a sentence equivalent to “No ifs, ands or buts” [[3]El Alaoui Faris M. Benabdeljlil M. Boutazount N. Mourji F. Agoulmame M. Rahmani M. Berramdane M. Aït Benhaddou H. Ettahri L. Chkili T. Adaptation et validation du Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) en arabe.Rev. Neurol. (Paris). 2003; 159: 146Google Scholar]. For the Moroccan version of the MoCA [[1]Azdad A. Benabdeljlil M. Al Zemmouri K. El Alaoui Faris M. Standardization and validation of montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA) in the Moroccan population.International Journal of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. 2019; 8: 1-5Google Scholar], the two sentences for the « Language-sentence repetition » item were replaced by two sentences in Arabic dialect to reflect local familiarity and we had then to check their validity during a pilot study. Concerning the language-verbal fluency, we chose the letter (ب) (b) for the phonemic letter fluency subtest according to our previous standardization study of this test. A cognitive test could be used in any Arab country, but needs modifications from one country to another for the dialectal part. Culturally adaptation is also needed for non-verbal items such as changing images or figures places, as we did with the items “construction” and “initiation” in the Moroccan adaptation of the MDRS [[5]Sanhaji S. Elargoub I. Lemaréchal C. Benabdeljlil M. El Alaoui Faris M. Moroccan version of the mattis dementia rating scale: the effects of age, education, and gender.World Journal of Neuroscience. 2018; 8: 90-97Google Scholar], where figures were moved from the left to the right side of the sheet. Furthermore, differences exist in the Arab world and even between regions in the same country in term of quality of education. It is mandatory that each country has its own norms, distributed by age bracket, gender and educational level. NPT should also be validated in each country, in order to check their sensitivity. Using unvalidated tests without local normative data entails a risk of wrong assessments and misinterpretations. Otherwise there is an overall high rate of illiteracy in the Arab speaking areas. Usual NPT could not be used in illiterates to whom specific tools should be proposed using only non-written material. [2Abdelhak Azdad A. Fatima Boutbibe F. Benabdeljlil M. El Alaoui Faris M. Adaptation and standardization of the free and cued selective reminding test to the Moroccan population.International Journal of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. 2016; 5: 7-14Google Scholar, 4Ferguson C.A. Diglossia.WORD. 1959; 15: 325-340Google Scholar]

From A to Z? Retrieval‐induced forgetting of non‐verbal information indicates how writing systems can shape memory organisation

We investigated retrieval-induced forgetting of motor sequences in samples of Chinese participants. Retrieval-induced forgetting occurs when selective retrieval of a subset of information stored in memory causes forgetting for the non-retrieved rest. This phenomenon critically depends on the organised storage of separate categories of memory representations. In studies with participants from a Western culture (Germany), a categorization in left- and right-hand movements previously had been supported by letter stimuli based on a spatial mental representation of the Roman alphabet. The same assignment of letters from the beginning or end of the alphabet to motor sequences performed either with the left- or the right-hand did not entail retrieval-induced forgetting in the present study, however (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, visual features of displaying to-be-learned sequences additionally supported a distinction into left and right. In Experiment 3, learning trials provided verbal category labels. The occurrence of retrieval-induced forgetting in the latter two experiments suggests language-dependent organisation of non-verbal items in memory.

Collaborative competence in dialogue: Pragmatic language impairment as a window onto the psychopathology of autism

BackgroundPragmatic language, including conversational ability, can be difficult for people with autism. Difficulties with dialogue may reflect impairment in interpersonal engagement more than general language ability. MethodWe investigated conversational abilities among children and adolescents with and without autism (n=18 per group) matched for language proficiency and productivity. Videotaped conversations from the Autism Diagnostic Observational Schedule (ADOS, Lord, Rutter, DiLavore, & Risi, 2001) were rated according to the Collaborative Competence in Dialogue (CCD) scale featuring six verbal and non-verbal ‘cues’ that conversational partners use to sustain dialogue. ResultsParticipants with autism produced significantly fewer ‘typical’ communicative cues and more cues rated as intermittent or rote/stereotyped, even when non-verbal items (gaze) were removed from consideration. Within the autism group, competence in dialogue was not correlated with ‘general’ language ability, but was correlated with a measure of pragmatic ability. ConclusionsDifficulties with collaboration in dialogue may mirror the intermittent or incomplete interpersonal engagement of children with autism. ImplicationsAssessment of language ability in autism should include observation in unstructured social settings.

Development and Standardization of a New Cognitive Assessment Test Battery for Chinese Aphasic Patients: A Preliminary Study.

Background:Nonlinguistic cognitive impairment has become an important issue for aphasic patients, but currently there are few neuropsychological cognitive assessment tests for it. To get more information on cognitive impairment of aphasic patients, this study aimed to develop a new cognitive assessment test battery for aphasic patients, the Non-language-based Cognitive Assessment (NLCA), and evaluate its utility in Chinese-speaking patients with aphasia.Methods:The NLCA consists of five nonverbal tests, which could assess five nonlinguistic cognitive domains such as visuospatial functions, attention test, memory, reasoning, and executive functions of aphasic patients. All tests are modified from the nonverbal items of the current existed tests with some changes to the characteristics of Chinese culture. The NLCA was tested in 157 participants (including 57 aphasic patients, 50 mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients, and 50 normal controls), and was compared with other well-established relative neuropsychological tests on the reliability, validity, and utility.Results:The NLCA was fully applicable in the MCI patients and the normal controls, almost working in the aphasic patients (57/62 patients, 91.9%). The NLCA scores were 66.70 ± 6.30, 48.67 ± 15.04, and 77.58 ± 2.56 for the MCI group, the aphasic group, and the control group, respectively, and a significant difference was found among three groups (F = 118.446, P < 0.001). The Cronbach's alpha of the NLCA as an index of internal consistency was 0.805, and the test-retest and interrater reliability was adequate (r=0.977 and r= 0.970, respectively). The correlations of the cognitive subtests and their validation instruments were between 0.540 and 0.670 (all P < 0.05). Spearman's correlation analysis indicated that the coefficient of internal consistency of each subtest itself was higher than other subtests. When choosing the Montreal Cognitive Assessment score of <26 as the diagnostic criteria of cognitive impairment, the area under the curve for all participants in the control and MCI groups was 0.942 (95% confidence interval: 0.895–0.989), and an optimal cutoff point of 75.00 seemed to provide the best balance between sensitivity and specificity. Age (r = −0.406, P < 0.001) was the main influence factor for the NLCA.Conclusions:The NLCA could efficiently differentiate the cognitive impairment patients from the normal controls and is a reliable and valid cognitive assessment test battery to specially find nonlinguistic cognitive function for aphasic patients.

Learning and Overnight Retention in Declarative Memory in Specific Language Impairment.

We examined learning and retention in nonverbal and verbal declarative memory in Hungarian children with (n = 21) and without (n = 21) SLI. Recognition memory was tested both 10 minutes and one day after encoding. On nonverbal items, only the children with SLI improved overnight, with no resulting group differences in performance. In the verbal domain, the children with SLI consistently showed worse performance than the typically-developing children, but the two groups showed similar overnight changes. The findings suggest the possibility of spared or even enhanced declarative memory consolidation in SLI.

MATRICES, UN NUEVO TEST PARA EVALUAR LA INTELIGENCIA GENERAL: PROCESO DE DESARROLLO Y PROPIEDADES PSICOMÉTRICAS MATRICES

A NEW TEST FOR ASSESSING GENERAL COGNITIVE ABILITY: DEVELOPMENT AND PSYCHOMETRIC PROPERTIESResumen.El uso de ítems con un formato de matrices es algo habitual en las pruebas de evaluación de las aptitudes mentales superiores y de la capacidad cognitiva general (g), siendo el Test de Matrices Progresivas de Raven la prueba más utilizada y reconocida en el área. Sin embargo, existen algunos inconvenientes importantes que pueden restringir el uso de esta prueba hoy en día (p. ej., sus ítems están muy divulgados y es fácil acceder a ellos mediante Internet, los baremos en algunos países están claramente desactualizados, el tiempo de aplicación es largo...). El Test de Inteligencia General MATRICES ha sido desarrollado con el objetivo de proporcionar una medida más eficiente de la capacidad cognitiva general (g) usandol ítems no verbales con este formato.

Follow-Up of Children with Gastrointestinal Malformations and Postnatal Surgery and Anesthesia: Evaluation at Two Years of Age

Background: The impact of general anesthesia is considered a risk factor for developmental delay. Very few studies have been performed to measure the neurodevelopmental outcome of patients with selected malformations. Objectives: The purpose of this ambidirectional cohort study was to measure the neurodevelopmental outcome of patients with congenital gastrointestinal-tract malformations (GIM). Methods: Forty patients with relevant congenital GIM born in the period from June 2008 to April 2011 were identified. The inclusion criteria were a gestational age >32 completed weeks and surgery that required a general anesthetic within the first 28 days of life. The neonatal characteristics and anesthesia data were retrospectively collected. Based on information about the neonatal characteristics and socioeconomic background, a matched pair was found. All participants were tested at the corrected age of 24 months with the Bayley Scales of Infant Development II assessment. Results: The outcome was split into the psychomotor index (PDI) and mental developmental index (MDI). The patient group achieved a mean PDI of 103 and the control group achieved 106, i.e. these values were not significantly different. The mean MDI was 102 in the patient group and 110 in the control group. This difference was significant (p = 0.022). Detailed analysis of the items showed no significance for nonverbal items but a significant difference for verbal items (p = 0.029). Further analysis showed no correlation between relevant anesthesia data and the neurodevelopmental outcome. Conclusions: We found lower MDI scores due to worse verbal abilities in the patient group. Children born with GIM should be considered a risk group with respect to language development.

NEREC, an effective brain mapping protocol for combined language and long-term memory functions

Temporal lobe epilepsy can induce functional plasticity in temporoparietal networks involved in language and long-term memory processing. Previous studies in healthy subjects have revealed the relative difficulty for this network to respond effectively across different experimental designs, as compared to more reactive regions such as frontal lobes. For a protocol to be optimal for clinical use, it has to first show robust effects in a healthy cohort. In this study, we developed a novel experimental paradigm entitled NEREC, which is able to reveal the robust participation of temporoparietal networks in a uniquely combined language and memory task, validated in an fMRI study with healthy subjects. Concretely, NEREC is composed of two runs: (a) an intermixed language-memory task (confrontation naming associated with encoding in nonverbal items, NE) to map language (i.e., word retrieval and lexico-semantic processes) combined with simultaneous long-term verbal memory encoding (NE items named but also explicitly memorized) and (b) a memory retrieval task of items encoded during NE (word recognition, REC) intermixed with new items. Word recognition is based on both perceptual-semantic familiarity (feeling of 'know') and accessing stored memory representations (remembering). In order to maximize the remembering and recruitment of medial temporal lobe structures, we increased REC difficulty by changing the modality of stimulus presentation (from nonverbal during NE to verbal during REC). We report that (a) temporoparietal activation during NE was attributable to both lexico-semantic (language) and memory (episodic encoding and semantic retrieval) processes; that (b) encoding activated the left hippocampus, bilateral fusiform, and bilateral inferior temporal gyri; and that (c) task recognition (recollection) activated the right hippocampus and bilateral but predominant left fusiform gyrus. The novelty of this protocol consists of (a) combining two tasks in one (language and long-term memory encoding/recall) instead of applying isolated tasks to map temporoparietal regions, (b) analyzing NE data based on performances recorded during REC, (c) double-mapping networks involved in naming and in long-term memory encoding and retrieval, (d) focusing on remembering with hippocampal activation and familiarity judgment with lateral temporal cortices activation, and (e) short duration of examination and feasibility. These aspects are of particular interest in patients with TLE, who frequently show impairment of these cognitive functions. Here, we show that the novel protocol is suited for this clinical evaluation.

Development and Validation of the Stanford Binet-5 Rarely Missed Items-Nonverbal Index for the Detection of Malingered Mental Retardation

Current research suggests that effort indices designed for the detection of malingered neurocognitive functioning do not have adequate sensitivity or specificity for use in cases where malingered mental retardation (MR) is the issue. Therefore, development and validation of reliable, objective measures for the detection of malingered MR have become imperative for both forensic and disability cases in recent years. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an embedded malingering index for the Stanford Binet Intelligence Scales, Fifth Edition. Data from individuals in the SB5 standardization sample, who had intellectual deficits in the MR range, were used. Items that were rarely missed by the MR sample were pooled and validated using a sample of 54 college students asked to feign MR. Nonverbal items that were missed significantly more frequently by the malingering "analog MR sample" were retained and composed the Stanford Binet Rarely Missed Items-Nonverbal (SBRMI-NV) index. When only individuals who successfully malingered MR (FSIQ < 71) were included, sensitivity of 0.88 and specificity of 1.00 were obtained. Results indicate that although the SBRMI-NV needs further validation, it shows great promise in the detection of malingered MR.

Playful fostering of 6- to 8-year-old students’ inductive reasoning

This paper focuses on a training program in inductive reasoning for first-grade students and presents the direct results as well as the longitudinal effects of the evaluation study. The training is based on Klauer's theory of inductive reasoning and on his “Cognitive training for children” concept ( Klauer, 1989a). The training program consists of 120 problems which can be solved through inductive reasoning. The tools for the training exercises were selected to correspond with the age of the targeted cohort. The experimental group in the study consisted of 90 students, whereas the control group was made up of 162. An inductive reasoning test was used in the pre- and posttest as well as in the follow-up study (one year later). The test comprised 33 figural, non-verbal items (Cronbach α = .86). On the posttest, the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group by more than one standard deviation. The experimental group scored significantly higher in each skill area targeted by the training. The most noticeable development was found in system formation. No gender differences were detected on the pre- or the posttest. The effect size of the training program was d = 1.12. In the follow-up study, the experimental group still significantly outperformed the control group; however, their respective levels of development had not changed in this one-year period. Thus, the training effect proved to be stable over time independent of individual students’ original level of inductive reasoning. This study provided evidence that inductive reasoning could be developed very effectively at this early age.

Suppression of emotional and nonemotional content in memory: effects of repetition on cognitive control.

Two experiments utilized a think/no-think paradigm to examine whether cognitive control of memories differs depending on whether they contain information with negative or neutral emotional content. During a training phase, participants learned face-word pairs (Experiment 1) or face-picture pairs (Experiment 2). In a subsequent experimental phase, participants were shown faces and told to think of the items paired with some of the faces and to try not to think of the items paired with other faces. Finally, in a test phase, participants were again shown each face and asked to recall the item with which it had been paired previously. Results for both verbal (Experiment 1) and nonverbal (Experiment 2) items indicated that the facilitatory and inhibitory influences of cognitive control were larger for negative than neutral items.

The origins of tense-based case marking in Pitta-Pitta and Wangkajutjuru

Several Australian languages show tense marking on non-verbal items, including the Karnic languages Pitta-Pitta and Wangkajutjuru (formerly spoken in Western Queensland). In these languages the forms of core case markers and the ergative/accusative split vary according to the tense and mood of the clause. Here I describe tense marking in the languages and the differences between sources and dialects, and discuss the etymologies of the case markers. I discuss sources for the future-marking construction and argue that these tense-marking patterns arose from the reanalysis of a construction which marked reduced transitivity. While several other constructions have been proposed in the literature as the source for Pitta-Pitta's case marking, I argue here that they do not adequately account for all the facts.

VERBAL VERSUS NON-VERBAL PERFORMANCES IN MILD ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE

The purpose of this study was to investigate the pattern of cognitive impairment in mild Alzheimer's disease (AD). We tested thirty patients (10 men and 20 women) with mini mental state examination (MMSE) scores between 20 and 24. The mental deterioration battery (MDB) was administered to all subjects. For each patient, the mean general score for the 4 verbal and the 4 non-verbal items were calculated, in order to verify the existence of a significant difference between them. In our sample the results showed that the difference between verbal and non-verbal items was not significant, i.e., the disease seems to affect both domains uniformly.