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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
- A sociodemographic and neuropsychological characterization of an illiterate populationPublication . Reis, Alexandra; Guerreiro, M.; Petersson, Karl MagnusThe objectives of this article are to characterize the performance and to discuss the performance differences between literate and illiterate participants in a well-defined study population. We describe the participant-selection procedure used to investigate this population. Three groups with similar sociocultural backgrounds living in a relatively homogeneous fishing community in southern Portugal were characterized in terms of socioeconomic and sociocultural background variables and compared on a simple neuropsychological test battery; specifically, a literate group with more than 4 years of education (n = 9), a literate group with 4 years of education (n = 26), and an illiterate group (n = 31) were included in this study. We compare and discuss our results with other similar studies on the effects of literacy and illiteracy. The results indicate that naming and identification of real objects, verbal fluency using ecologically relevant semantic criteria, verbal memory, and orientation are not affected by literacy or level of formal education. In contrast, verbal working memory assessed with digit span, verbal abstraction, long-term semantic memory, and calculation (i.e., multiplication) are significantly affected by the level of literacy. We indicate that it is possible, with proper participant-selection procedures, to exclude general cognitive impairment and to control important sociocultural factors that potentially could introduce bias when studying the specific effects of literacy and level of formal education on cognitive brain function.
- Educational level, socioeconomic status and aphasia research: A comment on Connor et al. (2001) - Effect of socioeconomic status on aphasia severity and recoveryPublication . Reis, Alexandra; Petersson, Karl MagnusIs there a relation between socioeconomic factors and aphasia severity and recovery? Connor, Obler, Tocco, Fitzpatrick, and Albert (2001) describe correlations between the educational level and socioeconomic status of aphasic subjects with aphasia severity and subsequent recovery. As stated in the introduction by Connor et al. (2001), studies of the influence of educational level and literacy (or illiteracy) on aphasia severity have yielded conflicting results, while no significant link between socioeconomic status and aphasia severity and recovery has been established. In this brief note, we will comment on their findings and conclusions, beginning first with a brief review of literacy and aphasia research, and complexities encountered in these fields of investigation. This serves as a general background to our specific comments on Connor et al. (2001), which will be focusing on methodological issues and the importance of taking normative values in consideration when subjects with different socio-cultural or socio-economic backgrounds are assessed. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.