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- Literacy: exploring working memory systemsPublication . Silva, Catarina; Faísca, Luís; Ingvar, Martin; Petersson, Karl Magnus; Reis, AlexandraPrevious research showed an important association between reading and writing skills (literacy) and the phonological loop. However, the effects of literacy on other working memory components remain unclear. In this study, we investigated performance of illiterate subjects and their matched literate controls on verbal and nonverbal working memory tasks. Results revealed that the phonological loop is significantly influenced by literacy, while the visuospatial sketchpad appears to be less affected or not at all. Results also suggest that the central executive might be influenced by literacy, possibly as an expression of cognitive reserve.
- Semantic interference on a phonological task in illiterate subjectsPublication . Reis, Alexandra; Faísca, Luís; Mendonca, Susana; Ingvar, Martin; Petersson, Karl MagnusScandinavian Journal of Psychology, 2007, 48, 69–74 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9450.2006.00544.x © 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations. Published by Blackwell Publishing L td., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. ISSN 0036-5564. Blackwell Publishing Ltd Health and Disability Semantic interference on a phonological task in illiterate subjects ALEXANDRA REIS, 1,2,3 L UÍS FAÍSCA, 2,3 SUSANA MENDONÇA, 2 MARTIN INGVAR 1 and KARL MAGNUS PETERSSON 1,3,4 1 Cognitive Neurophysiology Research Group, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden 2 Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group, Departamento de Psicologia, Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais, Universidade do Alg arve, Faro, Por tugal 3 Center for Intelligent Systems, Universidade do Algarve, Faro, Portugal 4 F. C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands R eis, A., Faísca, L., Mendonça, S., Ingvar, M. & Petersson, K. M. (2007). Semantic interference on a phonological task in illit erate subjects. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology , 48 , 69–74. Previous research suggests that learning an alphabetic written language influences aspects of the auditory-verbal language syste m. In this study, we e xamined whether literacy influences the notion of words as phonological units independent of lexical semantics in literate a nd illiterate subjects. Subjects had to decide which item in a word- or pseudoword pair was phonologically longest. By manipulating the relat ionship between r eferent size and phonological length in three word conditions (congruent, neutral, and incongruent) we could examine to what e xtent subjects f ocused on form rather than meaning of the stimulus material. Moreover, the pseudoword condition allowed us to examine global p honological aw areness independent of lexical semantics. The results showed that literate performed significantly better than illiterate subj ects in the neutral and incongruent word conditions as well as in the pseudoword condition. The illiterate group performed least well in the incong ruent condition and significantly better in the pseudoword condition compared to the neutral and incongruent word conditions and suggest that pe rformance on phonological word length comparisons is dependent on literacy. In addition, the results show that the illiter a te participant s are able to perceive and process phonological length, albeit less well than the literate subjects, when no semantic interference is present . In conclusion, the present results confirm and extend the finding that illiterate subjects are biased towards semantic-conceptual-pragmatic type s of cognitive processing
- Formal schooling influences two- but not three-dimensional naming skillsPublication . Reis, Alexandra; Magnus Petersson, Karl; Castro-Caldas, A.; Ingvar, MartinThe modulatory influence of literacy on the cognitive system of the human brain has been indicated in behavioral, neuroanatomic, and functional neuroimaging studies. In this study we explored the functional consequences of formal education and the acquisition of an alphabetic written language on two- and three-dimensional visual naming. The results show that illiterate subjects perform significantly worse on immediate naming of two-dimensional representations of common everyday objects compared to literate subjects, both in terms of accuracy and reaction times. In contrast, there was no significant difference when the subjects named the corresponding real objects. The results suggest that formal education and learning to read and to write modulate the cognitive process involved in processing two- but not three-dimensional representations of common everyday objects. Both the results of the reaction time and the error pattern analyses can be interpreted as indicating that the major influence of literacy affects the visual system or the interaction between the visual and the language systems. We suggest that the visual system in a wide sense and/or the interface between the visual and the language system are differently formatted in literate and illiterate subjects. In other words, we hypothesize that the pattern of interactions in the functional-anatomical networks subserving visual naming, that is, the interactions within and between the visual and language processing networks, differ in literate and illiterate subjects. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science.