Parallel Interactions Between Linguistic and Contextual Factors in Bilinguals.

The necessity for introducing interactionist and parallelism approaches in different branches of cognitive science emerged as a reaction to classical sequential stage-based models. Functional psychological models that emphasized and explained how different components interact, dynamically producing cognitive and perceptual states, influenced multiple disciplines. Chiefly among them were experimental psycholinguistics and the many applied areas that dealt with humans' ability to process different types of information in different contexts. Understanding how bilinguals represent and process verbal and visual input, how their neural and psychological states facilitate such interactions, and how linguistic and nonlinguistic processing overlap, has now emerged as an important area of multidisciplinary research. In this article, we will review available evidence from different language-speaking groups of bilinguals in India with a focus on situational context. In the discussion, we will address models of language processing in bilinguals within a cognitive psychological approach with a focus on existent models of inhibitory control. The paper's stated goal will be to show that the parallel architecture framework can serve as a theoretical foundation for examining bilingual language processing and its interface with external factors such as social context.

Investigating the role of spatial filtering on distractor suppression.

In recent years, evidence has accumulated towards a distractor suppression mechanism that enables efficient selection of targets in a visual search task. According to these findings, the search for a target is faster in the presence of a salient distractor in a display among homogenous distractors as opposed to its absence. Studies have also shown that distractor suppression not only operates on the feature level but can also be spatially guided. The motivation of the current study was to examine if spatially guided distractor suppression can be goal-driven. We tested this across four experiments. In Experiment 1A, the task was to search for a shape target (e.g., a circle) and discriminate the orientation of the line within it. In some trials, a salient color distractor was presented in the display while participants were told that it appeared in one of the two locations on the horizontal axis (or the vertical axis, counterbalanced across participants). We expected enhanced distractor suppression when the salient distractor appeared within this "spatial filter" but did not find it since the target was also presented at the filtered locations. Experiment 1B replicated Experiment 1A, except that the target was always presented outside the filter; filtering enhanced search performance. In Experiment 2 even when the filter contained the salient distractor in only 65% of the filtered trials, filtering benefited search performance. In Experiment 3, the filter changed on every trial and did not benefit suppression.

Spatial communication systems across languages reflect universal action constraints.

The extent to which languages share properties reflecting the non-linguistic constraints of the speakers who speak them is key to the debate regarding the relationship between language and cognition. A critical case is spatial communication, where it has been argued that semantic universals should exist, if anywhere. Here, using an experimental paradigm able to separate variation within a language from variation between languages, we tested the use of spatial demonstratives-the most fundamental and frequent spatial terms across languages. In n = 874 speakers across 29 languages, we show that speakers of all tested languages use spatial demonstratives as a function of being able to reach or act on an object being referred to. In some languages, the position of the addressee is also relevant in selecting between demonstrative forms. Commonalities and differences across languages in spatial communication can be understood in terms of universal constraints on action shaping spatial language and cognition.

An unusual recurrent case of Cryptococcal sacroiliitis in an immunocompetent elderly female in Rajasthan, India.

A 70-year-old female presented with left sided low back pain. There was no history of any co-morbidities or immunocompromised state. Skeletal cryptococcosis was confirmed bsaed on culture and histopathology, along with pulmonary involvement. After a month of oral antifungal therapy, the patient's symptoms resolved, but an abscess relapsed at the same site, which was treated with a combination of IV Amphotericin B and 5-flucytosine followed by oral fluconazole, with no recurrence or complaints reported in subsequent follow-up.

A literacy-related color-specific deficit in rapid automatized naming: Evidence from neurotypical completely illiterate and literate adults.

There is a robust positive relationship between reading skills and the time to name aloud an array of letters, digits, objects, or colors as quickly as possible. A convincing and complete explanation for the direction and locus of this association remains, however, elusive. In this study, we investigated rapid automatized naming (RAN) of everyday objects and basic color patches in neurotypical illiterate and literate adults. Literacy acquisition and education enhanced RAN performance for both conceptual categories but this advantage was much larger for (abstract) colors than everyday objects. This result suggests that (a) literacy/education may be causal for serial rapid naming ability of non-alphanumeric items and (b) differences in the lexical quality of conceptual representations can underlie the reading-related differential RAN performance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Are Older Bilinguals' Better in Metaphor Generation?

Metaphor, as widely known, is a figure of speech where a word or phrase is used to describe an object, action, or event to which it cannot be applied exactly. Metaphors are often used figuratively to enable clarity or emphasize the similarities between the two things in a frame. In the current study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between cognitive functions and generating metaphor and their associations in older bilingual and monolingual participants. We conducted the experiment with fifty-six (Bilingual and Monolingual) participants in the age group ranging from 50 to 65 years. We administered the novel and conventional metaphor generation task based on vision words in perceptual domain in Telugu. Followed by a battery of cognitive function tests: Flanker task to study the attention, Semantic Fluency task, Corsi task to check working memory, LexTALE to measure the vocabulary, and a language questionnaire. These tasks are used to investigate the association and correlation between the old age bilingual and monolingual in generating vision metaphors. The current study's findings demonstrate that bilinguals have a considerable advantage in cognitive function and their ability to generate novel metaphors are better when compared to monolinguals.

Being sensitive in their own way: parental ethnotheories of caregiver sensitivity and child emotion regulation across five countries.

Caregiver sensitivity builds a basis for children's sense of security and effective emotion regulation during their development. Applying a cross-cultural lens, caregiver sensitivity can be divided into two subtypes, reactive and proactive, and its prevalence and meaning may differ across cultures. Guided by the theoretical frameworks of developmental niche and parental ethnotheories, the current study examines culture-specific meanings of caregiver sensitivity across five countries: India, Nepal, Korea, the United States of America (USA), and Germany. We examine the prevalence of maternal reactive and proactive sensitivity, children's emotional lability and regulation, and how mothers' sensitivity types are related to children's emotional characteristics. Participants included 472 mothers from the five countries with children aged between 6 and 7 years. Mothers reported their sensitivity preference in multiple vignettes and completed an emotion regulation checklist to report their children's emotional lability and regulation. A set of analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) found cultural differences in mothers' preference for proactive and reactive sensitivity. Mothers in India and Nepal reported the highest preference for proactive sensitivity followed by Korea and the USA, while German mothers reported the lowest preference for proactive sensitivity. Consequent regression analyses revealed varying associations between proactive sensitivity and child emotional characteristics in all five countries either directly or as moderated by child sex. These results evidence that parental ethnotheories are part of the developmental niche embedded in a larger cultural context. Findings on the differential links between the types of sensitivity and child emotion regulation provide cultural models of parental emotion socialization and children's emotional functioning.

Transcranial Surgery for Pituitary Tumors: A "Community Neurosurgery Experience".

Background: Despite the evolution of endoscopic techniques, large pituitary adenomas with unfavorable characteristics and irregular anatomical configurations continue to pose a challenge for the dexterity, skills, and patience of endoscopic surgeons. Transcranial surgery retains a significant role in these situations where the tumor access, hemostasis, and dissection around adjoining neurovascular tissues can be controlled efficaciously. Objective: In this report, we describe our experience with transcranial surgery for pituitary adenomas highlighting its safety and versatility in peripheral centers. Methods: We accessed the case files and imaging records of pituitary tumors operated between 2001 and 2019 at a private hospital in a major Indian city. The records were analyzed with emphasis on postoperative clinical course, visual, and endocrinological outcomes. The data was analyzed with respect to differences between transcranial and transsphenoidal procedures. Categorical variables were compared with Chi-square test/Fischer's exact test and difference in means evaluated with Welch's t-test. Results: A total of 178 procedures were performed in 173 patients with pituitary adenoma, who were the subjects of this study. Ninety-eight (56.7%) patients were treated by transsphenoidal excision whereas 80 (46.2%) underwent transcranial procedures (75 primary and five secondary). In the patients operated transcranially, we observed three deaths and nine patients suffered from significant morbidity. Visual outcomes were similar to the group operated transsphenoidally. However, incidence of panhypopituitarism was significantly higher in transcranial procedures; the extent of resection was poorer than transsphenoidal surgeries owing to more extensive nature of tumors. Conclusions: In low-volume centers, the endoscopic skills required for transsphenoidal resection of large and complex pituitary adenomas may be scarce. Transcranial surgery, dependent on familiar microsurgical techniques and equipment, may still be viable, safe, and an effective option.

How Does Literacy Affect Speech Processing? Not by Enhancing Cortical Responses to Speech, But by Promoting Connectivity of Acoustic-Phonetic and Graphomotor Cortices.

Previous research suggests that literacy, specifically learning alphabetic letter-to-phoneme mappings, modifies online speech processing and enhances brain responses, as indexed by the BOLD, to speech in auditory areas associated with phonological processing (Dehaene et al., 2010). However, alphabets are not the only orthographic systems in use in the world, and hundreds of millions of individuals speak languages that are not written using alphabets. In order to make claims that literacy per se has broad and general consequences for brain responses to speech, one must seek confirmatory evidence from nonalphabetic literacy. To this end, we conducted a longitudinal fMRI study in India probing the effect of literacy in Devanagari, an abubgida, on functional connectivity and cerebral responses to speech in 91 variously literate Hindi-speaking male and female human participants. Twenty-two completely illiterate participants underwent 6 months of reading and writing training. Devanagari literacy increases functional connectivity between acoustic-phonetic and graphomotor brain areas, but we find no evidence that literacy changes brain responses to speech, either in cross-sectional or longitudinal analyses. These findings shows that a dramatic reconfiguration of the neurofunctional substrates of online speech processing may not be a universal result of learning to read, and suggest that the influence of writing on speech processing should also be investigated.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT It is widely claimed that a consequence of being able to read is enhanced auditory processing of speech, reflected by increased cortical responses in areas associated with phonological processing. Here we find no relationship between literacy and the magnitude of brain response to speech stimuli in individuals who speak Hindi, which is written using a nonalphabetic script, Devanagari, an abugida. We propose that the exact nature of the script under examination must be considered before making sweeping claims about the consequences of literacy for the brain. Further, we find evidence that literacy enhances functional connectivity between auditory processing areas and graphomotor areas, suggesting a mechanism whereby learning to write might influence speech perception.

"Do You See and Hear More? A Study on Telugu Perception Verbs".

Verbs of perception describe the actual perception of some entity and it is emphasized by earlier researchers that lexicon in languages is conceptually-oriented and is necessary for our daily communicative needs. In this paper, we demonstrate and explain, which among the perception verbs have the higher frequencies of all the five senses (vision, hear, smell, taste, touch) by using a Telugu corpus and self-rating task. This study shows a greater lexical differentiation when compared to studies done using English corpus and other languages. Based on our analysis-vision, followed by hear are the most commonly used verbs in daily communicative needs by the Telugu speakers as compared to touch, taste, and smell; The inconsistency in usage of other senses are not identical to the vision and hear in other studies, it may be due to sampling and methodological variations in the corpus of different language, but in common these two senses play a key role in perception verbs. The study of Telugu perception verbs may give more interesting facts and insights into the cognitive linguistics paradigm.

Attention capture by brief abrupt-onset cues in deaf individuals.

Auditory loss in deaf individuals has been associated with an enhancement in the visual modality. Visual attention is one domain where such plasticity-induced changes have been observed, although which specific attentional mechanisms are improved is still not clear. Using a modified spatial cueing paradigm, we examined attention capture in deaf and normal-hearing participants. Brief abrupt-onset cues were presented for 16 ms either in attended or ignored locations. The to-be-attended locations for each trial were indicated by a horizontal or a vertical bar at the centre of the screen. These were presented either in vertical- or horizontal-only blocks or mixed together. We observed greater negative cueing effects in the NH group compared to deaf. Additionally, people with deafness showed greater capture by cues at ignored locations in the slower responses. These findings shed further light on orienting mechanisms in deaf and help in understanding the specificity of the differences in visual processing between deaf and normal-hearing individuals.

Effects of pointing movements on visuospatial working memory in a joint-action condition: Evidence from eye movements.

Previous studies showed that (a) performing pointing movements towards to-be-remembered locations enhanced their later recognition, and (b) in a joint-action condition, experimenter-performed pointing movements benefited memory to the same extent as self-performed movements. The present study replicated these findings and additionally recorded participants' fixations towards studied arrays. Each trial involved the presentation of two consecutive spatial arrays, where each item occupied a different spatial location. The item locations of one array were encoded by mere visual observation (the no-move array), whereas the locations of the other array were encoded by observation plus pointing movements (the move array). Critically, in Experiment 1, participants took turns with the experimenter in pointing towards the move arrays (joint-action condition), while in Experiment 2 pointing was performed only by the experimenter (passive condition). The results showed that the locations of move arrays were recognized better than the locations of no-move arrays in Experiment 1, but not in Experiment 2. The pattern of eye-fixations was in line with behavioral findings, indicating that in Experiment 1, fixations to the locations of move arrays were higher in number and longer in duration than fixations to the locations of no-move arrays, irrespective of the agent who performed the movements. In contrast, no differences emerged in Experiment 2. We propose that, in the joint-action condition, self- and other-performed pointing movements are coded at the same representational level and their functional equivalency is reflected in a similar pattern of eye-fixations.

Re-examining attention capture at irrelevant (ignored?) locations.

In 2018, Ruthruff and Gaspelin used a modified spatial cuing paradigm in which targets were presented at two locations while abrupt-onset cues could be presented at four locations. They found that performance following cues presented at irrelevant locations was no worse than following no cue or following a centrally presented cue. They concluded, as conveyed by the title of their article (Immunity to Attentional Capture at Ignored Locations) that a spatial attentional control setting had eliminated capture of attention. This conclusion was reached by comparing response time to targets on cue-absent versus irrelevant cues condition. We administered the exact same task in Experiment 1 and observed that responses on irrelevant trials were faster compared with cue absent trials providing support for the "immunity to attention capture claim" made by Ruthruff and Gaspelin (2018). However, cue absent trials may not be the most appropriate baseline condition as they lack the alerting benefit provided by cue-present trials. Thus, equivalent response times (RTs) on trials with absent cues and irrelevant cues observed in Ruthruff and Gaspelin (2018) could have been due to the lack of this alerting benefit. We tested this in Experiment 2 by additionally including a warning beep on every trial as an alerting signal. With this methodological change, we observed that responses were slower on irrelevant trials compared with the cue absent trials suggesting interference from cues at irrelevant locations. This study underscores the importance of using the appropriate baseline while testing attention capture. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The effects of short-term L2 training on components of executive control in Indian bilinguals.

This study investigated whether a short training (8 weeks) in the second-language (English) has any facilitative effect on components of executive functions in young adults. A pre-post design was used with two groups of participants: one group (experimental group) of students received English language training for eight weeks, and another group (control group) matched on age and background did not. Executive function tasks (Flanker, Stroop, and color-shape switching task) along with the object naming and working memory tasks were administered before and after the training. We observed that the experimental group demonstrated significant improvement in task switching, working memory capacity, and language skills. Findings from the study provide evidence that short training in second-language can enhance some components of executive functions besides improving language skills in young adult students. This finding contributes to a better understanding of language training and executive function among young adult bilinguals.

Effects of Pharmacological Inhibitors of NADPH Oxidase on Myogenic Contractility and Evoked Vasoactive Responses in Rat Resistance Arteries.

Reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as superoxide anions and hydrogen peroxide, are reported to contribute to the dynamic regulation of contractility in various arterial preparations, however, the situation in pressurized, myogenically active resistance arteries is much less clear. In the present study, we have utilized established pharmacological inhibitors of NADPH oxidase activity to examine the potential contribution of ROS to intrinsic myogenic contractility in adult Sprague-Dawley rat resistance arteries and responses to vasoactive agents acting via the endothelium (i.e., acetylcholine, SKA-31) or smooth muscle (i.e., sodium nitroprusside, phenylephrine). In cannulated and pressurized cremaster skeletal muscle and middle cerebral arteries, the NOX inhibitors 2-acetylphenothiazine (2-APT) and VAS2870, selective for NOX1 and NOX2, respectively, evoked concentration-dependent inhibition of basal myogenic tone in a reversible and irreversible manner, respectively, whereas the non-selective inhibitor apocynin augmented myogenic contractility. The vasodilatory actions of 2-APT and VAS2870 occurred primarily via the vascular endothelium and smooth muscle, respectively. Functional responses to established endothelium-dependent and -independent vasoactive agents were largely unaltered in the presence of either 2-APT or apocynin. In cremaster arteries from Type 2 Diabetic (T2D) Goto-Kakizaki rats with endothelial dysfunction, treatment with either 2-APT or apocynin did not modify stimulus-evoked vasoactive responses, but did affect basal myogenic tone. These same NOX inhibitors produced robust inhibition of total NADPH oxidase activity in aortic tissue homogenates from control and T2D rats, and NOX isozymes 1, 2 and 4, along with superoxide dismutase 1, were detected by qPCR in cremaster arteries and aorta from both species. Based on the diverse effects that we observed for established, chemically distinct NOX inhibitors, the functional contribution of vascular NADPH oxidase activity to stimulus-evoked vasoactive signaling in myogenically active, small resistance arteries remains unclear.

KCa channel activation normalizes endothelial function in Type 2 Diabetic resistance arteries by improving intracellular Ca2+ mobilization.

BACKGROUND: Endothelial dysfunction is an early pathogenic event in the progression of cardiovascular disease in patients with Type 2 Diabetes (T2D). Endothelial KCa2.3 and KCa3.1 K+ channels are important regulators of arterial diameter, and we thus hypothesized that SKA-31, a small molecule activator of KCa2.3 and KCa3.1, would positively influence agonist-evoked dilation in myogenically active resistance arteries in T2D. METHODOLOGY: Arterial pressure myography was utilized to investigate endothelium-dependent vasodilation in isolated cremaster skeletal muscle resistance arteries from 22 to 24 week old T2D Goto-Kakizaki rats, age-matched Wistar controls, and small human intra-thoracic resistance arteries from T2D subjects. Agonist stimulated changes in cytosolic free Ca2+ in acutely isolated, single endothelial cells from Wistar and T2D Goto-Kakizaki cremaster and cerebral arteries were examined using Fura-2 fluorescence imaging. MAIN FINDINGS: Endothelium-dependent vasodilation in response to acetylcholine (ACh) or bradykinin (BK) was significantly impaired in isolated cremaster arteries from T2D Goto-Kakizaki rats compared with Wistar controls, and similar results were observed in human intra-thoracic arteries. In contrast, inhibition of myogenic tone by sodium nitroprusside, a direct smooth muscle relaxant, was unaltered in both rat and human T2D arteries. Treatment with a threshold concentration of SKA-31 (0.3 µM) significantly enhanced vasodilatory responses to ACh and BK in arteries from T2D Goto-Kakizaki rats and human subjects, whereas only modest effects were observed in non-diabetic arteries of both species. Mechanistically, SKA-31 enhancement of evoked dilation was independent of vascular NO synthase and COX activities. Remarkably, SKA-31 treatment improved agonist-stimulated Ca2+ elevation in acutely isolated endothelial cells from T2D Goto-Kakizaki cremaster and cerebral arteries, but not from Wistar control vessels. In contrast, SKA-31 treatment did not affect intracellular Ca2+ release by the sarco/endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase (SERCA) inhibitor cyclopiazonic acid. CONCLUSIONS: Collectively, our data demonstrate that KCa channel modulation can acutely restore endothelium-dependent vasodilatory responses in T2D resistance arteries from rats and humans, which appears to involve improved endothelial Ca2+ mobilization.

Reward Influences Masked Free-Choice Priming.

While it is known that reward induces attentional prioritization, it is not clear what effect reward-learning has when associated with stimuli that are not fully perceived. The masked priming paradigm has been extensively used to investigate the indirect impact of brief stimuli on response behavior. Interestingly, the effect of masked primes is observed even when participants choose their responses freely. While classical theories assume this process to be automatic, recent studies have provided evidence for attentional modulations of masked priming effects. Most such studies have manipulated bottom-up or top-down modes of attentional selection, but the role of "newer" forms of attentional control such as reward-learning and selection history remains unclear. In two experiments, with number and arrow primes, we examined whether reward-mediated attentional selection modulates masked priming when responses are chosen freely. In both experiments, we observed that primes associated with high-reward lead to enhanced free-choice priming compared to primes associated with no-reward. The effect was seen on both proportion of choices and response times, and was more evident in the faster responses. In the slower responses, the effect was diminished. Our study adds to the growing literature showing the susceptibility of masked priming to factors related to attention and executive control.

Childhood maltreatment and its mental health consequences among Indian adolescents with a history of child work.

OBJECTIVES: Although the prevalence and mental health consequences of childhood maltreatment among adolescents have been studied widely, there are few data addressing these issues in Asian lower middle-income countries. Here, we assessed the prevalence and types of childhood maltreatment and, for the first time, examined their association with current mental health problems in Indian adolescents with a history of child work. METHODS: One hundred and thirty-two adolescents (12-18 years; 114 males, 18 females) with a history of child work were interviewed using the Child Maltreatment, Conventional Crime, and Witnessing and Indirect Victimisation modules of the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire. Potential psychiatric diagnoses and current emotional and behavioural problems were assessed using the culturally adapted Hindi versions of the Youth's Inventory-4R and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, respectively. RESULTS: A large proportion of the sample reported childhood abuse or neglect (83.36%), direct or indirect victimisation (100%) and experienced symptoms of one or more psychiatric disorders (83.33%). Of the most common maltreatment types, physical abuse was present for 72.73% (extra-familial 56.25%, intra-familial 42.71%), emotional abuse for 47.7% (extra-familial 74.6%, intra-familial 12.9%), general neglect for 17.4% and unsafe home for 45.5% of the adolescents. All these maltreatment types were associated with poor mental health, with emotional abuse showing the strongest and wide-ranging impact. CONCLUSIONS: Indian adolescents with a history of child work are at an extremely high risk of extra-familial physical and emotional abuse as well as victimisation. They also experience a range of psychiatric symptoms, especially if they suffered emotional abuse. There is an urgent need for routine mental health screening and to consider emotional abuse in all current and future top-down and bottom-up approaches to address childhood maltreatment, as well as in potential interventions to ameliorate its adverse effects on mental health and well-being, of child and adolescent workers.