The power of emotional valence – from cognitive to affective processes in reading

The comprehension of stories requires the reader to imagine the cognitive and affective states of the characters. The content of many stories is unpleasant, as they often deal with conflict, disturbance or crisis. Nevertheless, unpleasant stories can be liked and enjoyed. In this fMRI study, we used a parametric approach to examine (1) the capacity of increasing negative valence of story contents to activate the mentalizing network (cognitive and affective theory of mind, ToM), and (2) the neural substrate of liking negatively valenced narratives. A set of 80 short narratives was compiled, ranging from neutral to negative emotional valence. For each story mean rating values on valence and liking were obtained from a group of 32 participants in a prestudy, and later included as parametric regressors in the fMRI analysis. Another group of 24 participants passively read the narratives in a three Tesla MRI scanner. Results revealed a stronger engagement of affective ToM-related brain areas with increasingly negative story valence. Stories that were unpleasant, but simultaneously liked, engaged the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), which might reflect the moral exploration of the story content. Further analysis showed that the more the mPFC becomes engaged during the reading of negatively valenced stories, the more coactivation can be observed in other brain areas related to the neural processing of affective ToM and empathy.

"Fact versus Fiction – How paratextual information shapes our reading processes"

Our life is full of stories: some of them depict real-life events and were reported, e.g. in the daily news or in autobiographies, whereas other stories, as often presented to us in movies and novels, are fictional. However, we have only little insights in the neurocognitive processes underlying the reading of factual as compared to fictional contents. We investigated the neurocognitive effects of reading short narratives, labeled to be either factual or fictional. Reading in a factual mode engaged an activation pattern suggesting an action-based reconstruction of the events depicted in a story. This process seems to be past-oriented and leads to shorter reaction times at the behavioral level. In contrast, the brain activation patterns corresponding to reading fiction seem to reflect a constructive simulation of what might have happened. This is in line with studies on imagination of possible past or future events.

Russian language maintenance through bedtime story reading?: Linguistic strategies and language negotiation in Russian-French speaking families in Switzerland

This article proposes an interactional approach to the question of Russian language maintenance through the activity of bedtime story-reading in Russian-French bilingual families in French speaking Switzerland. Reading stories appears to be a language maintenance strategy commonly employed by the Russian speaking parent. The ritual and recreational moment of story-reading therefore becomes an opportunity for language learning. Drawing upon a language socialization perspective, this paper proposes an interactional analysis of the language use in the activity of story-reading. It shows how the language choice of the participants may be requested, negotiated and challenged during the interaction. The analysis further informs us about the language choice pattern and the bilingual competences in these families. We will gain insight into (Russian) language maintenance as a daily social and linguistic practice.

Visual exploration behaviour during clock reading in Alzheimer's disease

Eye movement behaviour during visual exploration of 24 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease and 24 age-matched controls was compared in a clock reading task. Controls were found to focus exploration on distinct areas at the end of each clock hand. The sum of these two areas of highest fixation density was defined as the informative region of interest (ROI). In Alzheimer's disease patients, visual exploration was less focused, with fewer fixations inside the ROI, and the time until the first fixation was inside the ROI was significantly delayed. Changes of fixation distribution correlated significantly with the ability to read the clock correctly, but did not correlate with dementia severity. In Alzheimer's disease patients, fixations were longer and saccade amplitudes were smaller. The altered visual exploration in Alzheimer's disease might be related to parietal dysfunction or to an imbalance between a degraded occipito-parietal and relatively preserved occipito-temporal visual network.

Internet video telephony allows speech reading by deaf individuals and improves speech perception by cochlear implant users

OBJECTIVE To analyze speech reading through Internet video calls by profoundly hearing-impaired individuals and cochlear implant (CI) users. METHODS Speech reading skills of 14 deaf adults and 21 CI users were assessed using the Hochmair Schulz Moser (HSM) sentence test. We presented video simulations using different video resolutions (1280 × 720, 640 × 480, 320 × 240, 160 × 120 px), frame rates (30, 20, 10, 7, 5 frames per second (fps)), speech velocities (three different speakers), webcameras (Logitech Pro9000, C600 and C500) and image/sound delays (0-500 ms). All video simulations were presented with and without sound and in two screen sizes. Additionally, scores for live Skype™ video connection and live face-to-face communication were assessed. RESULTS Higher frame rate (>7 fps), higher camera resolution (>640 × 480 px) and shorter picture/sound delay (<100 ms) were associated with increased speech perception scores. Scores were strongly dependent on the speaker but were not influenced by physical properties of the camera optics or the full screen mode. There is a significant median gain of +8.5%pts (p = 0.009) in speech perception for all 21 CI-users if visual cues are additionally shown. CI users with poor open set speech perception scores (n = 11) showed the greatest benefit under combined audio-visual presentation (median speech perception +11.8%pts, p = 0.032). CONCLUSION Webcameras have the potential to improve telecommunication of hearing-impaired individuals.

Cognitive Differences in Chart Reading: A Comparison of Nurses and Physicians

This pilot study compares the mental models of a patient constructed by nurses and physicians while reading an electronic medical record. Preliminary results suggest that the participants' summaries were both quantitatively and qualitatively different. The physician made more inferences and focused on deeper relationships in the record, whereas the nurse focused on the descriptive surface structure of the record.

RNetCDF – A Package for Reading and Writing NetCDF Datasets

This paper describes the RNetCDF package (version 1.6), an interface for reading and writing files in Unidata NetCDF format, and gives an introduction to the NetCDF file format. NetCDF is a machine independent binary file format which allows storage of different types of array based data, along with short metadata descriptions. The package presented here allows access to the most important functions of the NetCDF C-interface for reading, writing, and modifying NetCDF datasets. In this paper, we present a short overview on the NetCDF file format and show usage examples of the package.

Rationale for reading fluconazole MICs at 24 hours rather than 48 hours when testing Candida spp. by the CLSI M27-A2 standard method.

We investigated if CLSI M27-A2 Candida species breakpoints for fluconazole MIC are valid when read at 24 h. Analysis of a data set showed good correlation between 48- and 24-h MICs, as well as similar outcomes and pharmacodynamic efficacy parameters, except for isolates in the susceptible dose-dependent category, such as Candida glabrata.

Language context modulates reading route: an electrical neuroimaging study.

INTRODUCTION The orthographic depth hypothesis (Katz and Feldman, 1983) posits that different reading routes are engaged depending on the type of grapheme/phoneme correspondence of the language being read. Shallow orthographies with consistent grapheme/phoneme correspondences favor encoding via non-lexical pathways, where each grapheme is sequentially mapped to its corresponding phoneme. In contrast, deep orthographies with inconsistent grapheme/phoneme correspondences favor lexical pathways, where phonemes are retrieved from specialized memory structures. This hypothesis, however, lacks compelling empirical support. The aim of the present study was to investigate the impact of orthographic depth on reading route selection using a within-subject design. METHOD We presented the same pseudowords (PWs) to highly proficient bilinguals and manipulated the orthographic depth of PW reading by embedding them among two separated German or French language contexts, implicating respectively, shallow or deep orthography. High density electroencephalography was recorded during the task. RESULTS The topography of the ERPs to identical PWs differed 300-360 ms post-stimulus onset when the PWs were read in different orthographic depth context, indicating distinct brain networks engaged in reading during this time window. The brain sources underlying these topographic effects were located within left inferior frontal (German > French), parietal (French > German) and cingular areas (German > French). CONCLUSION Reading in a shallow context favors non-lexical pathways, reflected in a stronger engagement of frontal phonological areas in the shallow versus the deep orthographic context. In contrast, reading PW in a deep orthographic context recruits less routine non-lexical pathways, reflected in a stronger engagement of visuo-attentional parietal areas in the deep versus shallow orthographic context. These collective results support a modulation of reading route by orthographic depth.