Liory Fern-Pollak

Aims: Recent evidence points towards dissociable effects of dopaminergic medication on motor function and cognitive function mediated by different fronto-striatal neural circuits. This study aimed to clarify the role of dopaminergic medication in spatial working memory, and reinforcement-based associative learning in relation to clinical changes in motor function in early Parkinson’s disease (PD). Method: We tested 14 patients with mild to moderate PD on and off dopaminergic medication, on a spatial delayed-response working memory task, and on spatial and non-spatial (visual) trial-and-error learning tasks based on reinforcement, carefully matched for motor requirements. In addition, we explored relationships between the effects of withdrawal on motor symptom expression and performance on the cognitive tasks. Results: Withdrawal from dopaminergic medication significantly exacerbated motor symptoms. This was related to spatial learning, but not visual learning, or delayed response accuracy. Moreover, medication withdrawal led to dissociable effects of response latency on the spatial learning and spatial delayed response tasks, with patients becoming faster after spatial learning, but relatively slower on the delayed response task. These changes in response latency were unrelated to motor symptom impairment. Conclusion: Our findings suggest dissociable effects of dopamine medication withdrawal on cognitive processes putatively mediated by dorsal and ventral striatal regions.

The Effects of Orthographic Transparency of Bilinguals’ Native Language on Reading in English as a Second Language: An fMRI study

Presenter: Liory Fern-Pollak. Centre for Cognition and Neuroimaging (CCNI), School of Social Sciences, Brunel University, West London. liory.fern-pollak@brunel.ac.uk

Co-authors:  Adrian Williams (adrian.williams@brunel.ac.uk), Taeko N Wydell (taeko.wydell@brunel.ac.uk) , Centre for Cognition and Neuroimaging (CCNI), School of Social Sciences, Brunel University, West London.

Objectives:
This study examined the cognitive processes and neural correlates of reading in English as a second language (ESL) by native speakers of Spanish and Hebrew, respectively.
The different levels of orthographic transparency of the 3 languages have been shown to affect reading strategies adopted by native readers. Specifically, reading in the transparent Spanish may be achieved via sublexical processing strategies, while in the opaque and ambiguous Hebrew, the more efficient strategy is lexical processing.
How this translates to reading in ESL however, is not yet well understood. While some studies have shown that bilingual readers ‘transfer’ the strategy from their first (L1) to their second language (L2), others have argued against this.
This study aimed to show that the putative ‘transfer’ of strategy would occur in line with the level of orthographic transparency of L1.
Methods:
Two groups of bilinguals and a group of English monolinguals, performed a word/nonword reading task where word frequency, length and lexicality were manipulated. The variance in response times (RT) and accuracy were taken to reflect the interplay between lexical and sublexical processing during reading. Participants performed the same task in and out of the fMRI scanner.

Results:
RT data showed that native Spanish bilinguals efficiently adapted the reading strategy to the level of orthographic transparency of English, with no apparent interference from L1. The naming pattern seen in this group indicated predominant reliance on lexical processing. In contrast, native Hebrew bilinguals showed an exaggerated reliance on sublexical processing while reading in ESL.

The fMRI data revealed a large degree of overlap in left lateralised activation within regions implicated in reading. The behavioural patterns were corroborated, whereby the native Spanish group showed preferential activation within regions implicated in lexical processing, whereas the native Hebrew group showed activation within regions associated with sublexical processing.

Conclusion:
This novel observation suggests that orthographic transparency affects reading in L2 in a different way to that previously thought. The results are discussed in the context of the Bilingual Interactive Activation model (BIA+; Dijkstra & Van Heuven, 2002).

An fMRI Study into Reading in Spanish, English and Hebrew: How does the Brain deal with such Different Orthographies?

Liory Fern-Pollak, Adrian Williams and Taeko N Wydell, Brunel University

This study examined the effects of different levels of orthographic transparency on the processes involved in reading Spanish, English and Hebrew. The levels of print-to-sound correspondence of these 3 orthographies may be viewed as lying along a continuum, with Spanish at the transparent end, Hebrew at the opaque end, and English as the midpoint.
Previous behavioural studies have repeatedly shown that reading in orthographically transparent languages may be achieved via sublexical / phonological processing strategies, while in orthographically opaque languages the more efficient strategy relies on lexical/semantic processing. To date, few studies have examined the differences in reading strategies used in 3 different languages within the same experimental framework, and no study has done this using neuroimaging techniques. This study therefore, aimed to fill the gap in the literature and visualise the neural correlates of reading in the three languages using fMRI.

Three groups of native speakers of Spanish, English and Hebrew, respectively, performed a word/nonword reading task where word frequency, length and lexicality were manipulated and effects were assessed both in and out of the scanner.  The behavioural data showed that reading in Spanish was predominantly associated with sublexical/phonological processing, reading in Hebrew was predominantly associated with lexical/semantic processing, and reading in English was shown to involve a balanced interplay of the two.  The fMRI data corroborated the behavioural data whereby reading in each language was associated with preferential activation within left lateralised cortical regions implicated in semantic and phonological processing, in keeping with their graded levels of orthographic transparency.

Previous research has identified that while negative emotions can have a detrimental effect on academic achievements (Valiente et al. 2012), mental toughness can be a positive predictor of success (Robinson 2013). The current survey study investigates these possible predictors of academic success within undergraduate students at the University of West London. An opportunity sample of 161 participants (120 female, 41 male, aged 18 to 48) completed the Mental Toughness Questionnaire (MTQ48) (Clough et al. 2002) and the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) (Watson et al. 1988). With the students’ permission their questionnaire data was compared to their mean end of year marks. Controlling for age, female students showed a negative correlation between grades and the MTQ48 subscales Control-of-Emotion and Confidence-in-Abilities. The latter could suggest that over confidence may be having a negative effect on academic achievement. Within the male students (again controlling for age...

As higher education practitioners, we put in every effort to motivate and engage our students in their learning process. This qualitative research examined students’ understanding of academic success. It was aimed at gaining an understanding of their perspective on how teaching activities can be tailored to support them through the process of reaching this goal. Thematic analysis of the collected data highlighted the need for personal development training, alongside the delivery of subject content, to be integrated within their programme of studies. This presentation is aimed at stimulating discussion and brainstorming of ideas around good practice in this regard.

Intellectual ability, achievement motivation, conscientiousness and learning style are all positively associated with academic success (Busato et al., 2000). Thus academic performance does not only depend on intellectual ability but also on additional individual qualities. Other studies concur, including a recent quantitative study which found that emotionality; assertiveness, conscientiousness and common sense all have a significant impact on student grades (Mihaela , 2015). Moreover, the university environment should be conducive to enable students to develop a growth mind set, moving from externally to internally motivated behaviour (Naude et al., 2016). Such an attitude is instrumental in identifying deficits in student abilities and working towards improvement. Research on this topic is scarce, particularly from a qualitative approach. What factors contribute to academic success at University? This research question was explored through a qualitative study with 16 undergraduate...

Recent evidence points towards dissociable effects of dopaminergic medication on motor function and cognitive function mediated by different fronto-striatal neural circuits. This study aimed to clarify the role of dopaminergic medication in spatial working memory, and reinforcement-based associative learning in relation to clinical changes in motor function in early Parkinson's disease (PD). We tested 14 patients with mild to moderate PD on and off dopaminergic medication, on a spatial delayed-response working memory task, and on spatial and non-spatial (visual) trial-and-error learning tasks based on reinforcement, carefully matched for motor requirements. In addition, we explored relationships between the effects of withdrawal on motor symptom expression and performance on the cognitive tasks. Withdrawal from dopaminergic medication significantly exacerbated motor symptoms. This was related to spatial learning, but not visual learning, or delayed response accuracy. Moreover, medication withdrawal led to dissociable effects of response latency on the spatial learning and spatial delayed response tasks, with patients becoming faster after spatial learning, but relatively slower on the delayed response task. These changes in response latency were unrelated to motor symptom impairment. Our findings suggest dissociable effects of dopamine medication withdrawal on cognitive processes putatively mediated by dorsal and ventral striatal regions.

We evaluated a simple computational model of productive vocabulary acquisition, applied to simulating two case studies of 7-year-old children with developmental word-finding difficulties across four core behavioural tasks. Developmental models were created, which captured the deficits of each child. In order to predict the effects of intervention, we exposed the computational models to simulated behavioural interventions of two types, targeting the improvement of either phonological or semantic knowledge. The model was then evaluated by testing the predictions from the simulations against the actual results from an intervention study carried out with the two children. For one child it was predicted that the phonological intervention would be effective, and the semantic intervention would not. This was borne out in the behavioural study. For the second child, the predictions were less clear and depended on the nature of simulated damage to the model. The behavioural study found an ef...

This paper presents results from a survey examining the relationship between mental toughness and academic success, as measured by grade, in undergraduate students. One of the subscales of Mental Toughness (MT), Control of Life, significantly predicts grades for both male and female students, while other subscales reveal gender differences in the importance of the MT construct within this context. The aim in presenting these results at the HEA STEM conference is to open up the debate about Mental Toughness and Control of Life, and to invite discussion of possible interventions to improve students’ Control of Life, and therefore their grades.

The study investigated the outcome of a word-web intervention for children diagnosed with word-finding difficulties (WFDs). Twenty children age 6-8 years with WFDs confirmed by a discrepancy between comprehension and production on the Test of Word Finding-2, were randomly assigned to intervention (n = 11) and waiting control (n = 9) groups. The intervention group had six sessions of intervention which used word-webs and targeted children's meta-cognitive awareness and word-retrieval. On the treated experimental set (n = 25 items) the intervention group gained on average four times as many items as the waiting control group (d = 2.30). There were also gains on personally chosen items for the intervention group. There was little change on untreated items for either group. The study is the first randomised control trial to demonstrate an effect of word-finding therapy with children with language difficulties in mainstream school. The improvement in word-finding for treated items wa...

The study investigated the outcome of a word-web intervention for children diagnosed with word-finding difficulties (WFDs). Twenty children age 6-8 years with WFDs confirmed by a discrepancy between comprehension and production on the Test of Word Finding-2, were randomly assigned to intervention (n = 11) and waiting control (n = 9) groups. The intervention group had six sessions of intervention which used word-webs and targeted children's meta-cognitive awareness and word-retrieval. On the treated experimental set (n = 25 items) the intervention group gained on average four times as many items as the waiting control group (d = 2.30). There were also gains on personally chosen items for the intervention group. There was little change on untreated items for either group. The study is the first randomised control trial to demonstrate an effect of word-finding therapy with children with language difficulties in mainstream school. The improvement in word-finding for treated items wa...