Phonological competition and cooperation in form-related priming: Sequential and nonsequential processes in word production.

Phonological competition theory states that competition among discrepant segments of similar words leads to inhibition of high-frequency word-naming responses in form-related priming tasks. If segments are selected sequentially, competition should be greater for begin-related pairs (storage-story), in which discrepant segments are late in the words, than for end-related pairs (glory-story), in which discrepant segments are selected before the shared ones. This pattern was not observed in standard visual priming, probably because of the influence of parallel orthographic input. However, it was observed in a repetitive word-pair production task in which visual input was absent. The findings favor a class of models in which nonsequential activation of phonological content precedes sequential selection of the segments of words to be spoken. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The dependence of lexical relatedness effects on syntactic connectedness.

Context effects on lexical decision were analyzed by manipulating lexical relatedness and syntactic connectedness. Related and unrelated word pairs were embedded in syntactic (e.g., "the author of this book/floor") and in scrambled (e.g., "the author the and book/floor") phrases. The sequences were presented serially and subjects made lexical decisions to the terminal targets. In four experiments, relatedness effects were substantial in syntactic phrases but only marginal in scrambled sequences. This result was unaffected by presentation rate or by blocking manipulations. A fifth experiment showed that the relatedness effect in syntactic phrases involved both facilitation of responses to related words and inhibition of responses to unrelated words. These results argue against a role for intralexical priming in on-line reading. They highlight the role of syntactic connectedness and suggest that contextual facilitation depends on the ease of integration of new words with the current text-level representation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conjoint and dissociable effects of syntactic and semantic context

Manipulating the semantic relatedness of noun and verb targets in contexts where they are grammatically appropriate or inappropriate allows for simultaneous examination of syntactic and semantic context effects. A lexical-decision experiment showed both a syntactic context effect and a semantic relatedness effect that was stronger in syntactically appropriate conditions. Thus, latencies appeared to be conjointly determined by syntactic and semantic context. In contrast, naming experiments also showed both semantic and syntactic effects, but the syntactic context effect was independent of semantic relatedness and was observed in the virtual absence of sensitivity to semantic anomaly. Thus, syntactic and semantic processing are largely dissociable in the naming task. In conjunction with other findings in the literature, this suggests the existence of an isolable level of syntactic assignment that precedes semantic integration of content words in sentence comprehension.     

Do patient‐reported measures of symptoms and health status predict mortality in hemodialysis? An assessment of POS‐S Renal and EQ‐5D

Introduction Experience with the use of patient‐reported outcome measures such as EQ‐5D and the symptom module of the Palliative care Outcome Scale—Renal Version (POS‐S Renal) as mortality prediction tools in hemodialysis is limited. Methods A prospective survival study of people receiving hemodialysis (N = 362). The EQ‐5D and the POS‐S Renal were used to assess symptom burden and self‐rated health (with a self‐rated component). Participants were followed from instrument completion to death or study end. Competing risks survival analysis was used to evaluate associations with time to death, with renal transplant as a competing risk. Findings 32% (N = 116) of participants died over a median (25th–75th centile) of 2.6 (1.41–3.38) years. Factors most notably associated with mortality adjusted hazard ratio (95%CI) included: lower EQ VAS score 2.7 (1.4, 5.2) P = 0.004 (lowest tertile), higher POS‐S Renal score 2.4 (1.3, 4.3) P = 0.004 (highest tertile), and lower EQ‐5D score 2.6 (1.3, 5.3) P = 0.01 (lowest tertile) as well as the presence of: “problems with mobility?” 2 (1.1, 3.3) P = 0.01, or “problems with usual activities?” 2.1 (1.4, 3.3), P < 0.001. After age adjustment area under the receiver operating curves (AUC) (95%CI) for mortality were: 0.71 (0.62, 0.79) for EQ VAS score, 0.71 (0.63, 0.80) for POS‐S Renal‐S Renal score, and 0.76 (0.68, 0.84) for EQ‐5D score. AUC 95%CI was highest for our fourth model at 0.79 (0.72, 0.86) comprised of individual elements from both instruments and established risk factors. Discussion EQ VAS scores and predictive models based on combinations of elements from the POS‐S Renal and EQ‐5D instruments may aid in mortality discrimination and possibly in the delivery of supportive care services.     

The influence of socioeconomic status on patient survival on chronic dialysis

Socioeconomic status (SES) has been linked to worse end‐stage kidney disease survival. The effect of SES on survival on chronic dialysis, including the impact of transplantation, was examined. A retrospective, observational study investigated the association of SES with dialysis patient survival, with censoring at time of transplantation. Adult patients commencing dialysis from 1990 to 2009 in an Irish tertiary center received a spatial SES score using the 2011 Pobal Haase‐Pratschke Deprivation Index and were compared by quartile. Cox proportional hazard models and Kaplan–Meier survival analysis examined any association of SES with survival. The 1794 patients included had a median follow‐up of 3.8 years. Patients in the lowest SES area quartile were significantly younger than the highest, mean age 56.7 vs. 59 years, P = 0.006, respectively. There was no association between SES area score and survival in an unadjusted model (hazard ratio [HR] 1.00, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.99–1.01). Survival in the highest SES area quartile was superior to the lowest SES in a multivariable adjusted model including age, gender, and dialysis modality (HR 0.83, 95% CI 0.70–0.99, P = 0.04). These results were only mildly attenuated by censoring at time of transplantation (highest SES area quartile deprived vs. lowest SES area quartile, HR 0.85, 95% CI 0.70–1.03, P = 0.09). Superior patient survival was identified in the highest SES areas compared with the lowest following age‐adjusted analyses, despite the older population in the most affluent areas. Further research should focus on identifying modifiable targets for intervention that account for this socioeconomic‐related survival advantage.