The activation of words in semantic memory occurs through automatic or controlled processes. Semantic priming experiments have revealed that these processes may be influenced by word relatedness and word expectancy. In a primed lexical decision task, automatic and controlled processing in ten mild to moderate individuals with aphasia were investigated through manipulation of stimulus relatedness, stimulus expectancy and stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). The group with aphasia was significantly influenced by expectancy at the short and long SOA. The overall results of this study suggest that lexical-semantic activation in individuals with mild to moderate aphasia is influenced by strategic processing.

Memory conjunction error is a common phenomenon that occurs when we incorrectly combine parts of previously experienced memories to create an entirely new memory. For example, such an error has occurred when a person remembers seeing the word toothache after viewing the words toothpick and earache instead. Two theories have been proposed in the literature to account for the mechanisms underlying such errors. In one account, memory conjunction errors occur because features stored in episodic memory are incorrectly conjoined. In another account, memory conjunction errors occur simply because conjunction lures seems familiar. In an attempt to distinguish the two theories, the current research focuses on the differences between retrieval mechanisms. Experiment 1 introduces and examines an important factor, the accessibility of episodic features. Experiment 2 further confirms that feature accessibility plays an important role in the occurrence of feature errors. Experiment 3 investigates the retrieval dynamics of the two types of episodic features. The current data pose major problems for the binding theory's claim about a feature binding process occurring at retrieval. Taken as a whole, the current data also show that unified events can be represented differently in episodic memory depending on the nature of the associated features.

This work investigated the ways in which the properties of a concept are activated when that concept is accessed. There has been considerable debate about how closely property information is tied to concepts and under what conditions it is available (e.g., Margolis and Lawrence, 1999). If property information is automatically activated, it should be detectable in both frequency estimation and speeded response tasks. According to Barsalou and Ross' automaticity hypothesis (1986, p.117), “…people become sensitive to the frequency of non-presented information through automatic processing of presented items by well-established memory structures.” On this account, if a list of concepts is presented, participants may be sensitive to the frequency of their properties. Therefore, after studying a list of items, participants should be able to estimate the number of items that were “red” or “sweet” without recalling individual items. Naturally, some properties are more important to a concept than others and are more likely to be activated. Sloman, Love, and Ahn (1998) developed a taxonomy of conceptual properties. Using ratings obtained in a variety of tasks, they performed a factor analysis that revealed three factors: centrality, salience, and diagnosticity. In these studies, I manipulated centrality and salience to appraise their relative importance for the activation of properties. Barsalou's (1982) work on context-independent and context-dependent properties asserts that the activation of properties may be automatic or strategic, depending on the property type. In both a frequency estimation task and a sentence-word priming task, I manipulated context to evaluate whether central or salient properties are context-dependent. In the sentence-word priming task, I was also able to assess degrees of context dependency. I found that: (1) people demonstrated frequency sensitivity to both central and salient properties but were more sensitive to central properties; (2) central properties appear to be activated faster than salient properties as indicated by the slopes in the frequency estimation task and reaction times in the sentence-word priming task; (3) the activation of both central and salient properties appear to be context-dependent or situated (Barsalou, 2000), with the activation of central properties being moderately context-dependent and that of salient properties, highly context-dependent.

The study was designed to investigate the sensitivity of the Reporter's Test to expressive language disturbances. One hundred and forty-four normal adults and 24 left brain-injured aphasic adults were given a test battery consisting of: the Reporter's Test (DeRenzi & Ferrari, 1978), the Token Test - part V (DeRenzi & Vignolo, 1962), the Word Fluency Measure (Wertz, Keith, & Custer, 1971), an Analysis of Connected Speech Samples (Yorkston & Beukelman, 1980), a Ten-Item Sentence Repetition Task, and the Imitator's Test. A significant difference was found between normal and asphasic adults' total scores and test times on the Reporter's Test. In addition, neither age nor educational level played a significant part in the performances of the normal subjects on the Reporter's Test. Interjudge reliability, test-retest reliability, and concurrent validity were established for the Reporter's Test. The Reporter's Test was found to be as sensitive as the Word Fluency Measure and the Token Test - part V to expressive language disturbances. The Reporter's Test was found to be a more sensitive measure than the Analysis of Connected Speech Sample. Hit rates and indices of determination were determined for all test measures. In addition, several test battery proposals were suggested.

Background: Call centres are thriving and expanding commercial enterprises providing cost-effective ways for organisations to connect with new and existing clients through telecommunication channels. Call centre agents perform this function telephonically for 75% of the day in large open-plan office environments characterised by workloads that are demanding, repetitive and highly scripted. Verbal abuse by clients is prevalent adding to a work experience that is potentially emotionally draining and stressful. Agents are under constant surveillance and monitoring to abide with commercial regulations but also to ensure high call volume and quality engagement with clients, these being the most important performance indicators. High staff absenteeism and attrition levels account for large financial losses in the industry. To date no studies have been found considering the impact of sensory processing of call centre agents on their performance, absenteeism and attrition. Sensory processing considers the neuro-physiological and behavioural components of individuals in the interactions with their daily work occupations and life environments. Although predominantly applied in paediatric clinical populations in occupational therapy, sensory processing provides universal truths about human behaviour which can add value to promoting wellness amongst healthy adults in work environments. Design: A quantitative, non-experimental and correlational study design was used to measure and compare demographic, sensory processing and performance data from 459 call centre staff within four fully operational call centres, which varied in type of operation, employer and geographical area in South Africa. The standardised and validated 60-item Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile (Brown, Tollefson, Dunn, Cromwell & Fillion, 2001) was used to measure sensory processing as neurological thresholds and potential propensity for individuals to cope with high sensory stimulating work environments. Agent performance data in each of the four centres were recorded daily, in real time, using sophisticated information technology systems, and included details about absenteeism. Attrition data were collected after the initial data intake to reflect true attrition. Results: Data were analysed using statistical methods to obtain locality (e.g. means, medians), dispersion (e.g. standard deviations and interquartile ranges) and associations (e.g. Spearman Rank correlations). Results showed strong, consistent and significant correlations between agents who displayed sensation avoiding processing and poor performance. Agents who exhibited sensation seeking processing had higher performance ratings. To a lesser, yet still significant, degree agents with low registration and sensory sensitivity also had lower performance ratings. Sensory sensitive agents were absent less often than other workers and sensation seeking agents showed a tendency for higher attrition. Results differed between service inbound call centres to sales and collections outbound ones. Team leaders, who are high performing agents promoted into these positions, had less sensory sensitive and sensation avoiding processing styles. A novel subset structure was designed to account for the multidimensional capacity of the AASP, and this was correlated with all the performance data. It provided a preliminary method for use in further research studies. The study strengths were the innovative sample in measuring sensory processing of healthy populations at work and the compilation of performance data through sophisticated computerised systems, which minimised the margin of error. Study limitations were the use of a self-questionnaire format for profile data collection and small sample sizes in subsequent data collection stages. Recommendations: The AASP has the potential to be used by call centre human resource practitioners for recruitment and performance management. Improved sensory environmental considerations and adaptations supportive of a more successful and healthier agent-job-environment fit are provided. The study findings support knowledge transfer into other general human resource management, education and training, occupational health management and occupational therapy practises. It expands the application of sensory processing theories and informs future research.

The purpose of this study was to extend the previous research on temporal acoustic characteristics in the imitative speech of non brain-injured, aphasic and apraxic adults. Voice onset time, vowel duration, final consonant duration and syllable duration were measured within single syllables. Two and three syllable segments were measured. Verbal response time and intersyllable intervals were also analyzed. Four females and six males were selected for participation in this investigation. Each subject's imitative productions of 198 items were tape recorded, spectrographically displayed and measured. Within CVC component measures, apraxic adults showed significant differences from non brain-injured and aphasic adults in their performance on CVC syllable duration, final consonant duration and on variability of CVC productions. Within silent interval measures, apraxic adults differed from non brain-injured and aphasic adults in their performance on verbal response times, intersyllable intervals and in variability of those performances. Among segment duration measures, apraxic adults differed from non brain-injured and aphasic adults in their mean segment durations and in the variability of their performance on these measures. Inferences were made relating the apraxic subjects' longer latency effects and their total response duration effects. Results support the concept of apraxia of speech as a motor programming disorder separate from, but co-occurring frequently with aphasia.

Bibliography: leaves 120-126.

Includes bibliographical references. / Substance abuse is a rising global health and social problem that is associated with serious medical, psychiatric, family, occupational, legal, financial and spiritual problems. While recovery from substance abuse is possible, it is a subjective and contested process. To date, the recovery process has not been explored from an occupational perspective in Zimbabwe, where as many as 60% of all readmissions at Zimbabwe’s psychiatric referral centre during the period from January 2010 to December 2011 were secondary to substance-induced disorders, and less than three percent of these patients moved into long-term recovery or sustained sobriety with rehabilitation follow-up. This qualitative narrative inquiry explores the journey of recovery from substance abuse among young adult Zimbabwean men. The aim of the study was to investigate how occupations played a role in the recovery journeys of each of these men. Three young adult men identified as former substance abusers were purposively selected for the study. Data generation occurred through in-depth narrative interviews with each participant. Principles of trustworthiness and validation emphasising the persuasiveness, coherence and pragmatic use of the narratives were applied throughout the research process, and ethical issues in narrative research were upheld. Ethical clearance was applied for and granted by the University of Cape Town’s Human Ethics Research Committee and permission to do the research was sought and given by the Medical Research Council of Zimbabwe. The findings of the study — explanatory stories — were produced through narrative analysis. These stories revealed substance abuse to be an occupation associated with both positive and negative consequences. Recovery from such abuse emerged as an ongoing occupational transition negotiated through participation in other occupations, and influenced by both personal and environmental factors. The way in which occupations were abandoned, modified and newly adopted during the process of this occupational transition is discussed. The construction and reconstruction of a positive occupational identity was seen as central to the process of occupational transition. The study concluded that engagement and participation in ‘engaging occupations’ was an intricate contributor to the recovery journey for young adult Zimbabwean men, and that narrative interviews should be used in generating data to explore the occupational nature of life and its events.

BACKGROUND: Different interactional contexts which bilingual speakers encounter place different demands of cognitive control on language processing (Green & Abutalebi, 2013: Adaptive Control Hypothesis; Green, 1998: Inhibitory Control Model). However, how varying cognitive control demands impact lexical access in bilingual persons with aphasia (BPWA) remains unclear. Verbal fluency tasks may provide valuable insights into the interplay between cognitive control and lexical access in BPWA by addressing word generation abilities in language contexts that exert varying degrees of cognitive control effort. AIMS: The present study aimed to examine the performance of BPWA on a semantic category generation task that requires word retrieval in single- and dual-language contexts with varying cognitive control demands and a traditional letter fluency task in single-language contexts. Associations between verbal fluency performance and (i) language use history, and (ii) performance on standardized measures for both BPWA and healthy bilinguals were also examined. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Twenty-three Spanish-English BPWA and twenty-two Spanish-English healthy bilinguals completed a language use questionnaire, verbal fluency testing and standardized language assessments in each language. The semantic category generation task included four conditions: two conditions examined word retrieval in the first-acquired language (L1) and second-acquired language (L2) in single-language contexts (No Switch-L1 and No Switch-L2) and two conditions elicited word retrieval in dual-language contexts (Self-Switch and Forced-Switch) with low and high cognitive control demands by allowing or restricting switching across languages. The letter fluency task was administered in single-language contexts only (F, A, S for English and P, M, R for Spanish). Verbal fluency performance was compared across conditions and groups using multivariate analyses. Further, correlational analyses were used to examine associations between verbal fluency tasks and bilingual language history and performance on language measures. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Overall, the healthy bilinguals outperformed BPWA both in terms of number of correct responses and proportion accuracy across all conditions of the two verbal fluency tasks. However, similar patterns of performance arose when examining performance of the two groups separately. Such that both groups showed reduced performance in the FS condition relative to other conditions (NS-L1, NS-L1, and SS for the healthy bilinguals and SS for the BPWA). However, the BPWA appeared to be more sensitive to the effects of increased cognitive control on lexical access relative to healthy bilinguals, as they also showed reduced performance in the NS-L2 condition compared to the SS condition. Additionally, healthy bilingual produced larger average cluster sizes, number of clusters, and number of switches than BPWA across both verbal fluency tasks. Finally, BPWA and healthy bilinguals’ performance on both verbal fluency tasks was associated with metrics of bilingual language history and language measures. Additionally, for BPWA, verbal fluency performance was associated with measures of cognitive and executive function. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study suggest that verbal fluency tasks can help characterize the impact of cognitive control on lexical access in BPWA in single- and dual-language contexts with important clinical implications. / 2022-02-16T00:00:00Z

South Africa is one of the most violent nations in the world and has an extremely high incidence of road accidents and work place injuries. The precise effect of this on upper limb injury statistics is not known as the incidence and prevalence of these conditions has yet to be determined. Hand injuries are, however, common worldwide and, in South Africa, may be complex in nature. This places a demand on occupational therapy services to provide comprehensive upper limb rehabilitation, a responsibility that inevitably falls on novice occupational therapists at some point. Occupational therapists in South Africa are required to complete a year of compulsory Community Service after graduating before they are permitted to practice independently. These placements are often in rural, under-resourced areas and graduates are faced with multiple new roles while negotiating the transition into practice. No published research to date has described the general experience of Community Service occupational therapists in South Africa or the extent to which these therapists are equipped to treat patients with upper limb injuries and conditions. The study sought to determine the extent to which Community Service occupational therapists are equipped to treat patients with upper limb injuries and conditions.