PhonItalia:a phonological lexicon for Italian

In this article, we present the first open-access lexical database that provides phonological representations for 120,000 Italian word forms. Each of these also includes syllable boundaries and stress markings and a comprehensive range of lexical statistics. Using data derived from this lexicon, we have also generated a set of derived databases and provided estimates of positional frequency use for Italian phonemes, syllables, syllable onsets and codas, and character and phoneme bigrams. These databases are freely available from phonitalia.org. This article describes the methods, content, and summarizing statistics for these databases. In a first application of this database, we also demonstrate how the distribution of phonological substitution errors made by Italian aphasic patients is related to phoneme frequency. © 2013 Psychonomic Society, Inc.

Concreteness effects in different tasks: implications for models of short-term memory

This study investigates concreteness effects in tasks requiring short-term retention. Concreteness effects were assessed in serial recall, matching span, order reconstruction, and free recall. Each task was carried out both in a control condition and under articulatory suppression. Our results show no dissociation between tasks that do and do not require spoken output. This argues against the redintegration hypothesis according to which lexical-semantic effects in short-term memory arise only at the point of production. In contrast, concreteness effects were modulated by task demands that stressed retention of item versus order information. Concreteness effects were stronger in free recall than in serial recall. Suppression, which weakens phonological representations, enhanced the concreteness effect with item scoring. In a matching task, positive effects of concreteness occurred with open sets but not with closed sets of words. Finally, concreteness effects reversed when the task asked only for recall of word positions (as in the matching task), when phonological representations were weak (because of suppression), and when lexical semantic representations overactivated (because of closed sets). We interpret these results as consistent with a model where phonological representations are crucial for the retention of order, while lexical-semantic representations support maintenance of item identity in both input and output buffers.

Separating the influences of prereading skills on early word and nonword reading

The essential first step for a beginning reader is to learn to match printed forms to phonological representations. For a new word, this is an effortful process where each grapheme must be translated individually (serial decoding). The role of phonological awareness in developing a decoding strategy is well known. We examined whether beginner readers recruit different skills depending on the nature of the words being read (familiar words vs. nonwords). Print knowledge, phoneme and rhyme awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological short term memory (STM), nonverbal reasoning, vocabulary, auditory skills and visual attention were measured in 392 pre-readers aged 4 to 5 years. Word and nonword reading were measured 9 months later. We used structural equation modeling to examine the skills-reading relationship and modeled correlations between our two reading outcomes and among all pre-reading skills. We found that a broad range of skills were associated with reading outcomes: early print knowledge, phonological STM, phoneme awareness and RAN. Whereas all these skills were directly predictive of nonword reading, early print knowledge was the only direct predictor of word reading. Our findings suggest that beginner readers draw most heavily on their existing print knowledge to read familiar words.

Effects of syllable structure in aphasic errors:implications for a new model of speech production

Current models of word production assume that words are stored as linear sequences of phonemes which are structured into syllables only at the moment of production. This is because syllable structure is always recoverable from the sequence of phonemes. In contrast, we present theoretical and empirical evidence that syllable structure is lexically represented. Storing syllable structure would have the advantage of making representations more stable and resistant to damage. On the other hand, re-syllabifications affect only a minimal part of phonological representations and occur only in some languages and depending on speech register. Evidence for these claims comes from analyses of aphasic errors which not only respect phonotactic constraints, but also avoid transformations which move the syllabic structure of the word further away from the original structure, even when equating for segmental complexity. This is true across tasks, types of errors, and, crucially, types of patients. The same syllabic effects are shown by apraxic patients and by phonological patients who have more central difficulties in retrieving phonological representations. If syllable structure was only computed after phoneme retrieval, it would have no way to influence the errors of phonological patients. Our results have implications for psycholinguistic and computational models of language as well as for clinical and educational practices.

Experiments in time:exploring the components of motor timing behaviour in dyslexia

This investigation aimed to pinpoint the elements of motor timing control that are responsible for the increased variability commonly found in children with developmental dyslexia on paced or unpaced motor timing tasks (Chapter 3). Such temporal processing abilities are thought to be important for developing the appropriate phonological representations required for the development of literacy skills. Similar temporal processing difficulties arise in other developmental disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Motor timing behaviour in developmental populations was examined in the context of models of typical human timing behaviour, in particular the Wing-Kristofferson model, allowing estimation of the contribution of different timing control systems, namely timekeeper and implementation systems (Chapter 2 and Methods Chapters 4 and 5). Research examining timing in populations with dyslexia and ADHD has been inconsistent in the application of stimulus parameters and so the first investigation compared motor timing behaviour across different stimulus conditions (Chapter 6). The results question the suitability of visual timing tasks which produced greater performance variability than auditory or bimodal tasks. Following an examination of the validity of the Wing-Kristofferson model (Chapter 7) the model was applied to time series data from an auditory timing task completed by children with reading difficulties and matched control groups (Chapter 8). Expected group differences in timing performance were not found, however, associations between performance and measures of literacy and attention were present. Results also indicated that measures of attention and literacy dissociated in their relationships with components of timing, with literacy ability being correlated with timekeeper variance and attentional control with implementation variance. It is proposed that these timing deficits associated with reading difficulties are attributable to central timekeeping processes and so the contribution of error correction to timing performance was also investigated (Chapter 9). Children with lower scores on measures of literacy and attention were found to have a slower or failed correction response to phase errors in timing behaviour. Results from the series of studies suggest that the motor timing difficulty in poor reading children may stem from failures in the judgement of synchrony due to greater tolerance of uncertainty in the temporal processing system.

A deficit in encoding the order of visual sequences in developmental dyslexia: a non -phonological deficit

The present thesis tested the hypothesis of Stanovich, Siegel, & Gottardo (1997) that surface dyslexia is the result of a milder phonological deficit than that seen in phonological dyslexia coupled with reduced reading experience. We found that a group of adults with surface dyslexia showed a phonological deficit that was commensurate with that shown by a group of adults with phonological dyslexia (matched for chronological age and verbal and non-verbal IQ) and normal reading experience. We also showed that surface dyslexia cannot be accounted for by a semantic impairment or a deficit in the verbal learning and recall of lexical-semantic information (such as meaningful words), as both dyslexic subgroups performed the same. This study has replicated the results of our published study that surface dyslexia is not the consequence of a mild retardation or reduced learning opportunities but a separate impairment linked to a deficit in written lexical learning, an ability needed to create novel lexical representations from a series of unrelated visual units, which is independent from the phonological deficit (Romani, Di Betta, Tsouknida & Olson, 2008). This thesis also provided evidence that a selective nonword reading deficit in developmental dyslexia persists beyond poor phonology. This was shown by finding a nonword reading deficit even in the presence of normal regularity effects in the dyslexics (when compared to both reading and spelling-age matched controls). A nonword reading deficit was also found in the surface dyslexics. Crucially, this deficit was as strong as in the phonological dyslexics despite better functioning of the sublexical route for the former. These results suggest that a nonword reading deficit cannot be solely explained by a phonological impairment. We, thus, suggested that nonword reading should also involve another ability relating to the processing of novel visual orthographic strings, which we called 'orthographic coding'. We then investigated the ability to process series of independent units within multi-element visual arrays and its relationship with reading and spelling problems. We identified a deficit in encoding the order of visual sequences (involving both linguistic and nonlinguistic information) which was significantly associated with word and nonword processing. More importantly, we revealed significant contributions to orthographic skills in both dyslexic and control individuals, even after age, performance IQ and phonological skills were controlled. These results suggest that spelling and reading do not only tap phonological skills but also order encoding skills.

Useful ideas for exploiting time to engineer representations

Commentary on target article "From simple associations to systematic reasoning: a connectionist representation of rules, variables, and dynamic bindings using temporal synchrony", by L. Shastri and V. Ajjangadde, pp. 417-494

Inscribing the organization:representations in dispute between accounting and production

This paper assumes that a primary function of management accounting is the representation of "accounting facts" for purposes such as organizational control. Accountants are able to offer conventional techniques of control, such as standard costing, as a consequence of their ability to deploy accounting representations within managerial and economic models of organizational processes. Accounting competes, at times, with other 'professional' groups, such as production planning or quality management people, in this role of representing the organization to management. The paper develops its arguments around a case illustration of cost accounting set in a low technology manufacturing environment. The research relates to a case organization in which accountants are attempting to establish the reliability of accounting inscriptions of a simple manufacturing process. The case research focuses on the documents, the inscriptions that vie for managements' attention. It is these sometimes messy and inaccurate representations which enable control of complex and heterogeneous activities at a distance. At the end of our site visits we observe quality management systems in the ascendancy over the accountants' standard costing systems. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Lexical and nonlexical processing in developmental dyslexia: a case for different resources and different impairments

In a group of adult dyslexics word reading and, especially, word spelling are predicted more by what we have called lexical learning (tapped by a paired-associate task with pictures and written nonwords) than by phonological skills. Nonword reading and spelling, instead, are not associated with this task but they are predicted by phonological tasks. Consistently, surface and phonological dyslexics show opposite profiles on lexical learning and phonological tasks. The phonological dyslexics are more impaired on the phonological tasks, while the surface dyslexics are equally or more impaired on the lexical learning tasks. Finally, orthographic lexical learning explains more variation in spelling than in reading, and subtyping based on spelling returns more interpretable results than that based on reading. These results suggest that the quality of lexical representations is crucial to adult literacy skills. This is best measured by spelling and best predicted by a task of lexical learning. We hypothesize that lexical learning taps a uniquely human capacity to form new representations by recombining the units of a restricted set.

Lexical learning and dysgraphia in a group of adults with developmental dyslexia

We investigated the ability to learn new words in a group of 22 adults with developmental dyslexia/dysgraphia and the relationship between their learning and spelling problems. We identified a deficit that affected the ability to learn both spoken and written new words (lexical learning deficit). There were no comparable problems in learning other kinds of representations (lexical/semantic and visual) and the deficit could not be explained in terms of more traditional phonological deficits associated with dyslexia (phonological awareness, phonological STM). Written new word learning accounted for further variance in the severity of the dysgraphia after phonological abilities had been partialled out. We suggest that lexical learning may be an independent ability needed to create lexical/formal representations from a series of independent units. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed. © 2005 Psychology Press Ltd.

Effects of syllabic complexity in predicting accuracy of repetition and direction of errors in patients with articulatory and phonological difficulties

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the existence of a strong and significant effect of complexity in aphasia independent from other variables including length. Complexity was found to be a strong and significant predictor of accurate repetition in a group of 13 Italian aphasic patients when it was entered in a regression equation either simultaneously or after a large number of other variables. Significant effects were found both when complexity was measured in terms of number of complex onsets (as in a recent paper by Nickels & Howard, 2004) and when it was measured in a more comprehensive way. Significant complexity effects were also found with matched lists contrasting simple and complex words and in analyses of errors. Effects of complexity, however, were restricted to patients with articulatory difficulties. Reasons for this association and for the lack of significant results in Nickels and Howard (2004) are discussed. © 2005 Psychology Press Ltd.

Length, lexicality, and articulatory suppression in immediate recall:evidence against the articulatory loop

Influential models of short-term memory have attributed the fact that short words are recalled better than longer words in serial recall (the length effect) to articulatory rehearsal. Crucial for this link is the finding that the length effect disappears under articulatory suppression. We show, instead, that, under suppression, the length effect is abolished or reversed for real words but remains robust for nonwords. The latter finding is demonstrated in a variety of conditions: with lists of three and four nonwords, with nonwords drawn from closed and open sets, with spoken and written presentation, and with written and spoken output. Our interpretation is that the standard length effect derives from the number of phonological units to be retained. The length effect is abolished or reversed under suppression because this condition encourages reliance on lexical-semantic representations. Using these representations, longer words can more easily be reconstructed from degraded phonology than shorter words. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Patterns of phonological errors as a function of a phonological versus an articulatory locus of impairment

WWe present the case of two aphasic patients: one with fluent speech, MM, and one with dysfluent speech, DB. Both patients make similar proportions of phonological errors in speech production and the errors have similar characteristics. A closer analysis, however, shows a number of differences. DB's phonological errors involve, for the most part, simplifications of syllabic structure; they affect consonants more than vowels; and, among vowels, they show effects of sonority/complexity. This error pattern may reflect articulatory difficulties. MM's errors, instead, show little effect of syllable structure, affect vowels at least as much as consonants and, and affect all different vowels to a similar extent. This pattern is consistent with a more central impairment involving the selection of the right phoneme among competing alternatives. We propose that, at this level, vowel selection may be more difficult than consonant selection because vowels belong to a smaller set of repeatedly activated units.

Delivering phonological and phonics training within whole-class teaching

Background: Early, intensive phonological awareness and phonics training is widely held to be beneficial for children with poor phonological awareness. However, most studies have delivered this training separately from children's normal whole-class reading lessons. Aims: We examined whether integrating this training into whole class, mixed-ability reading lessons could impact on children with poor phonological awareness, whilst also benefiting normally developing readers. Sample: Teachers delivered the training within a broad reading programme to whole classes of children from Reception to the end of Year 1 (N=251). A comparison group of children received standard teaching methods (N=213). Method: Children's literacy was assessed at the beginning of Reception, and then at the end of each year until 1 year post-intervention. Results: The strategy significantly impacted on reading performance for normally developing readers and those with poor phonological awareness, vastly reducing the incidence of reading difficulties from 20% in comparison schools to 5% in intervention schools. Conclusions: Phonological and phonics training is highly effective for children with poor phonological awareness, even when incorporated into whole-class teaching.

Regional representations in the EU:between diplomacy and interest mediation

What are regional representations in the European Union? What do they hope to achieve? Since the mid-1980s, sub-state actors in the EU such as county councils, Länder, Autonomous Communities, local, municipal and city authorities have been opening representative offices in Brussels – mini 'embassies' for their territories. Although on the surface these representations might look the same, in practice they operate according to very different dynamics. Whilst some rival national governments for a stake in EU policy development, others have more modest ambitions. This book offers a comprehensive assessment of the burgeoning phenomenon of regional representation in the EU. Considering evidence from old member states as well as those which joined the EU more recently, it looks at where strategies and aims differ, positioning various 'types' of representation closer to the work of embassies or to that carried out by lobbying groups. The author also considers how regional representations contribute to our understanding of multi-level governance in the EU.