Modulation of the rat stria vascularis in the absence of circulating adrenocorticosteroids.

Structural changes in the cellular morphology of the rat stria vascularis from a standardized region of the basal region and from a standardized region in the apical region of the rat cochlear duct were measured using stereological methods after removal of endogenous levels of adrenal steroids by bilateral adrenalectomy. Although there were some inconsistent and insignificant alterations in the volume density of intermediate and basal cells, a decreased volume density of marginal cells in both the basal region and in the apical region in adrenalectomized (ADX) animals as compared to sham animals was consistent with a concomitant significant increased (p less than or equal to 0.05) volume density of intercellular space as observed in both the basal and apical regions of the stria vascularis of ADX animals. Findings of this study indicate that the strial cells of the stria vascularis react differently and independently in response to the removal of adrenal steroids, and such strial responses occur uniform in both the base and apex.

Semantic paralexia and the wrong hemisphere: a note on Landis, Regard, Graves and Goodglass (1983).

Landis et al. report a significant correlation between lesion size and the presence of semantic paralexia in an unselected series of aphasic patients. They consider that this relationship supports a right-hemisphere source for semantic errors. We advance a variety of empirical and theoretical arguments against this interpretation.

Neuropsychological approaches to the study of reading.

This paper describes four syndromes of acquired dyslexia (that is, reading deficits in previously literate adults who have suffered neurological damage); deep dyslexia, surface dyslexia, phonological dyslexia and letter-by-letter reading. The format of the description inquires whether reading performance in each syndrome is (1) sensitive to dimensions of words (such as word length or part of speech), (2) affected by experimental manipulations (such as exposure duration), and (3) relevant to theorectical issues (such as the nature of codes for word recognition in reading). The four patterns of reading impairment seem to relate in an orderly way to these dimensions, manipulations and issues drawn from the literature on normal word recognition and production. Such orderly relationships, it is claimed, favour the position that neuropsychological observations are germane to conceptions of normal reading.

When face recognition fails.

Two studies investigated recognition of pictures of faces, focusing on the effects of changes in appearance of the face from presentation to test and type of processing or encoding. Experiment 1 demonstrated that (a) previously seen faces changed in pose and facial expression were discriminated from "new" faces essentially as well as pictures identical at presentation and test; (b) major changes in the appearance of a face ("disguises") reduced recognition almost to the level of chance; and (c) subjects encoding faces in terms of personality characteristics showed better recognition performance than subjects whose processing was based on physical, facial features. Experiment 2 expanded on result (b), utilizing photographs with systematic variations in pose and in the presence/absence of glasses, wig, and beard. The design required subjects to learn names for target faces and then to identify those targets in a series of test photographs. The manipulation of pose and disguising features produced effects on probability of identification that were orderly and dramatic in magnitude. Simple changes in appearance can effectively interfere with recognition of faces.