258
ABSTRACTS OF THE ANNUAL CSBBCS MEETING: 2014
Alike or Different: Comparing the Online Processing of Metaphors and Similes Carlos Roncero, Roberto G. de Almeida, Lady Davis Institute, Jewish General Hospital
[email protected] Studies have suggested that metaphors (education is a tree) and similes (education is like a tree) engage similar forms of processing, based on omnibus sentence reading times that may not have been sensitive enough to capture processing differences. We asked participants to read expressions in a self-paced moving window paradigm and checked for interpretation differences by following expressions with explanations that contained either a figurative or a literal property. Simile vehicles had longer reading times, whereas figurative-property explanations were read faster after metaphors, but slower after similes. These results suggest metaphors and similes are processed differently and convey different meanings.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Incremental Processing of Evaluative Adjectives Robert Redford, Craig Chambers, University of Toronto Mississauga
[email protected] A spoken-language eye-tracking experiment examined the time course of processing evaluative adjectives (e.g., pretty), which involve social knowledge for interpretation. Participants viewed arrays of images while hearing instructions containing evaluative vs. simple perceptual adjectives (e.g. Click on the yellow/pretty dress). Results showed that, although identification was slower for evaluative adjectives, identification of intended targets nevertheless began before the following noun. Interestingly, eye-movement patterns did not differ for adjectives of positive vs. negative valence (pretty vs. ugly) nor were they related to separatelyassessed subjective judgements about the “fit” between images and evaluative descriptions. Implications for theories of on-line comprehension are discussed.
What the Neighbours Say About the Bayesian Reader Derek Besner, Darcy White, Max Coltheart, University of Waterloo
[email protected] The central assumption in Norris’s Bayesian account of visual word identification is that the reader must select between competing possibilities in order to identify a word. A straightforward prediction derived from this account is that when having to identify an exception word (an item that violates the typical spellingsound correspondences), the more neighbours the word has the slower the time to read the word aloud. We examined a published corpus of thousands of words in order to address this issue. Alas, poor Yorick.
Amygdalar Atrophy as a Predictor of Cognitive Decline in Mild Cognitive Impairment Kylee Tamera Ramdeen, Rolf A. Heckemann, Alexander Hammers, Yanica Klein-Koerkamp, Olivier Moreaud, Sandrine Keignart, Alexandre Krainik, Aurélie Richard-Mornas, Pascal Hot, University of Ottawa
[email protected] Little is known of the clinical relevance of amygdalar atrophy in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). In this study, hippocampal and amygdalar volumes of 22 MCI patients and 22 controls were derived from magnetic resonance images segmented by an automatic multi-atlas segmentation procedure. The volume loss was greater in the amygdala (41%) than in the hippocampus (34%) in patients when compared with controls. Multiple regression analyses revealed that both hippocampal and amygdalar volume loss in MCI predicted memory impairment after controlling for the volume of the other. Amygdalar atrophy may thus have similar clinical implications to hippocampal atrophy in predicting AD.
Deficits in Spontaneous Facial Mimicry in Patients With Parkinson’s Disease Esztella Vezer, Steven R. Livingstone, Lucy McGarry, Frank A. Russo, Ryerson University
[email protected] A secondary motor symptom of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a deficit in the formation of emotional facial expressions, creating a ‘mask-like’ appearance in patients. We hypothesized that this motor deficit would affect PD patients’ spontaneous mimicry and perception of emotional facial expressions. Using facial electromyography, we observed that PD patients exhibited reduced mimicry compared with controls, and reduced accuracy in the identification of negative emotions. Facial muscle activity during angry stimuli predicted accuracy scores on the perceptual task across both groups. To our knowledge, this is the first study to document deficits in facial mimicry in patients with Parkinson’s disease.
Benign Epilepsy With CentroTemporal Spikes (BECTS): Still Considered as a Benign Neurologic Condition? Study of the Psycho-Affective, Neuropsychological, Behavioural and Electrophysiological Profile in Patients in the Active Phase and Remission Sandrine Mendizabal, University of Montréal
[email protected] Although BECTS is officially considered as a benign syndrome without cognitive impairments, a growing body of literature highlights the existence of a wide range of cognitive deficits, particularly of visual Working Memory (vWM). The aim of this study was to investigate a link between the hemisphere encompassing the epileptic focus and a specific pattern of cognitive deficits. Twelve children in BECTS active phase, 8 in remission, and their 20 controls, tested with a match-detection task coupled with elec-
