Using Virtual Technology to Promote Functional Communication in Aphasia: Preliminary Evidence From Interactive Dialogues With Human and Virtual Clinicians.

Purpose: We investigated the feasibility of using a virtual clinician (VC) to promote functional communication abilities of persons with aphasia (PWAs). We aimed to determine whether the quantity and quality of verbal output in dialogues with a VC would be the same or greater than those with a human clinician (HC).

Method: Four PWAs practiced dialogues for 2 sessions each with a HC and VC.

Size and case of type as stimuli in reading.

The role of size and case of print have provoked a number of experiments in the recent past. One strongly argued position is that the reader abstracts a canonical representation from a string of letters that renders its variations irrelevant and then carries out recognition procedures on that abstraction. An alternate view argues that the reader proceeds by analyzing the print, taking account of its manifold physical attributes such as length of words, their orientation, shape, and the like.

Auditory segregation: stream or streams?

When auditory material segregates into "streams," is the unattended stream actually organized as an entity? An affirmative answer is suggested by the observation that the organizational structure of the unattended material interacts with the structure of material to which the subject is trying to attend. Specificially, a to-be-rejected stream can, because of its structure, capture from a to-be-judged stream elements that would otherwiise be acceptable members of the to-be-judged stream.