Responses to Semantically Neutral Words in Varying Emotional Intonations.

Purpose Recent research on perception of emotionally charged material has found both an "emotionality effect" in which participants respond differently to emotionally charged stimuli relative to neutral stimuli in some cognitive-linguistic tasks and a "negativity bias" in which participants respond differently to negatively charged stimuli relative to neutral and positively charged stimuli. The current study investigated young adult listeners' bias when responding to neutral-meaning words in 2 tasks that varied attention to emotional intonation. Method Half the participants completed a word identification task in which they were instructed to type a word they had heard presented binaurally through Sony stereo MDR-ZX100 headphones.

Hearing taboo words can result in early talker effects in word recognition for female listeners.

Previous spoken word recognition research using the long-term repetition-priming paradigm found performance costs for stimuli mismatching in talker identity. That is, when words were repeated across the two blocks, and the identity of the talker changed reaction times (RTs) were slower than when the repeated words were spoken by the same talker. Such performance costs, or talker effects, followed a time course, occurring only when processing was relatively slow.

'I wish they would remember that I forget:' The effects of memory loss on the lives of individuals with mild-to-moderate dementia.

Purpose Of Study: Due to changing cognitive and functional capabilities, individuals with dementia face challenging care-related issues such as feelings of embarrassment, relationship strain, and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Limited research exists examining individuals with dementia's perceptions and concerns about these issues and how their perspectives can impact the quality and process of their illness experience.

Design And Methods: As part of a larger study, individuals with dementia (n = 114) answered five open-ended questions about their illness experience including: (1) daily routine, (2) concerns about memory loss, (3) relationships with others, (4) fears, and (5) what they wish others understood/knew.

Examining the effects of variation in emotional tone of voice on spoken word recognition.

Emotional tone of voice (ETV) is essential for optimal verbal communication. Research has found that the impact of variation in nonlinguistic features of speech on spoken word recognition differs according to a time course. In the current study, we investigated whether intratalker variation in ETV follows the same time course in two long-term repetition priming experiments.

Predictors of self-reported psychosocial outcomes in individuals with dementia.

Purpose: Little is known about the illness experience from the perspective of individuals with dementia (IWDs), as most quantitative research has focused on IWDs' psychosocial issues from proxy reports. The primary aim of this study was to better understand the impact of the illness experience on well-being from the perspective of the IWD through the framework of the Stress Process Model for Individuals with Dementia (SPM for IWDs).

Design And Methods: Guided by the SPM for IWDs, self-report data were collected from IWDs (N = 131) about their illness experience, including primary objective and subjective stressors, secondary role and intrapsychic strains, and well-being outcomes.

Including individuals with memory impairment in the research process: the importance of scales and response categories used in surveys.

Several ethical considerations emerge when conducting research with memory-impaired individuals, including the individuals' ability to comprehend and accurately respond to survey questions. However, little empirical research exists on how to format surveys to decrease cognitive demands, thereby allowing researchers to more accurately survey this population. The current study presents data from structured interviews with 125 community-residing, memory-impaired older adults about their illness experience.