Mehdi Purmohammad

Background: In cognitive linguistics, the key factor in understanding of the abstract and metaphorical concepts is the individuals' embodied experiences sensed by their body. Therefore, a better understanding of abstract concepts requires healthy senses and feelings. Hearing impairment leads to disorders in understanding abstract concepts. The present study is aimed to investigate the differences between 5 to 7 year-old Persian-speaking hearing-impaired children and their normal counterparts in terms of understanding embodied conceptual metaphors.    Methods: The present study was conducted on twenty 5 to 7 year-old Persian-speaking children with moderate to severe hearing impairment. The study investigated the participants' understanding of abstract concepts when using embodied metaphors in four sensory-motor organs (the eyes, ears, hands and legs) through conducting a researcher-made task including both audio and audio-visual sections. The results of the hearing-impaired children were compared with the performance of 200 normal children.    Results: The findings of the present study indicated a significantly lower mean score of hearing-impaired children compared to their normal peers. The mean score of hearing-impaired participants was 9.6, while their normal counterparts scored 24.51. Moreover, it was indicated that the performance of 6 to 7 year-old hearing-impaired children was better than the 5 to 6 year-old children.    Conclusion: Despite the quick reception through hearing aids, hearing-impaired children are unable to understand abstract and metaphorical concepts although they have an acceptable language competence unless receiving a direct professional training to understand the metaphors. The hearing-impaired children tend to interpret the metaphorical concepts literally and fail to understand the abstract metaphorical concepts. The findings of the present study clearly revealed the necessity of designing a cognitive rehabilitation protocol dedicated to the abstract concepts.

The goal of the present thesis was to investigate the production of code-switched utterances in bilinguals’ speech production. This study investigates the availability of grammatical-category information during bilingual language processing. The specific aim is to examine the processes involved in the production of Persian-English bilingual compound verbs (BCVs). A bilingual compound verb is formed when the nominal constituent of a compound verb is replaced by an item from the other language. In the present cases of BCVs the nominal constituents are replaced by a verb from the other language. The main question addressed is how a lexical element corresponding to a verb node can be placed in a slot that corresponds to a noun lemma. This study also investigates how the production of BCVs might be captured within a model of BCVs and how such a model may be integrated within incremental network models of speech production. In the present study, both naturalistic and experimental data were used to investigate the processes involved in the production of BCVs. In the first part of the present study, I collected 2298 minutes of a popular Iranian TV program and found 962 code-switched utterances. In 83 (8%) of the switched cases, insertions occurred within the Persian compound verb structure, hence, resulting in BCVs. As to the second part of my work, a picture-word interference experiment was conducted. This study addressed whether in the case of the production of Persian-English BCVs, English verbs compete with the corresponding Persian compound verbs as a whole, or whether English verbs compete with the nominal constituents of Persian compound verbs only. Persian-English bilinguals named pictures depicting actions in 4 conditions in Persian (L1). In condition 1, participants named pictures of action using the whole Persian compound verb in the context of its English equivalent distractor verb. In condition 2, only the nominal constituent was produced in the presence of the light verb of the target Persian compound verb and in the context of a semantically closely related English distractor verb. In condition 3, the whole Persian compound verb was produced in the context of a semantically unrelated English distractor verb. In condition 4, only the nominal constituent was produced in the presence of the light verb of the target Persian compound verb and in the context of a semantically unrelated English distractor verb. The main effect of linguistic unit was significant by participants and items. Naming latencies were longer in the nominal linguistic unit compared to the compound verb (CV) linguistic unit. That is, participants were slower to produce the nominal constituent of compound verbs in the context of a semantically closely related English distractor verb compared to producing the whole compound verbs in the context of a semantically closely related English distractor verb. The three-way interaction between version of the experiment (CV and nominal versions), linguistic unit (nominal and CV linguistic units), and relation (semantically related and unrelated distractor words) was significant by participants. In both versions, naming latencies were longer in the semantically related nominal linguistic unit compared to the response latencies in the semantically related CV linguistic unit. In both versions, naming latencies were longer in the semantically related nominal linguistic unit compared to response latencies in the semantically unrelated nominal linguistic unit. Both the analysis of the naturalistic data and the results of the experiment revealed that in the case of the production of the nominal constituent of BCVs, a verb from the other language may compete with a noun from the base language, suggesting that grammatical category does not necessarily provide a constraint on lexical access during the production of the nominal constituent of BCVs. There was a minimal context in condition 2 (the nominal linguistic unit) in which the nominal constituent was produced in the presence of its corresponding light verb. The results suggest that generating words within a context may not guarantee that the effect of grammatical class becomes available. A model is proposed in order to characterize the processes involved in the production of BCVs. Implications for models of bilingual language production are discussed.

Introduction Linguistic disorders are one of the common problems in Alzheimer’s disease, which in recent years has been considered as one of the key parameters in the diagnosis of Alzheimer (AD). Given that changes in sentence processing and working memory and the relationship between these two activities may be a diagnostic parameter in the early and preclinical stages of AD, the present study examines the comprehension and production of sentences and working memory in AD patients and healthy aged people. Methods Twenty-five people with mild Alzheimer’s and 25 healthy elderly people participated in the study. In this study, we used the digit span to evaluate working memory. Syntactic priming and sentence completion tasks in canonical and non-canonical conditions were used for evaluating sentence production. We administered sentence picture matching and cross-modal naming tasks to assess sentence comprehension. Results The results of the present study revealed that healthy elderly p...

Background: In cognitive linguistics, the key factor in understanding of the abstract and metaphorical concepts is the individuals' embodied experiences sensed by their body. Therefore, a better understanding of abstract concepts requires healthy senses and feelings. Hearing impairment leads to disorders in understanding abstract concepts. The present study is aimed to investigate the differences between 5 to 7 year-old Persian-speaking hearing-impaired children and their normal counterparts in terms of understanding embodied conceptual metaphors.    Methods: The present study was conducted on twenty 5 to 7 year-old Persian-speaking children with moderate to severe hearing impairment. The study investigated the participants' understanding of abstract concepts when using embodied metaphors in four sensory-motor organs (the eyes, ears, hands and legs) through conducting a researcher-made task including both audio and audio-visual sections. The results of the hearing-impaired children were compared with the performance of 200 normal children.    Results: The findings of the present study indicated a significantly lower mean score of hearing-impaired children compared to their normal peers. The mean score of hearing-impaired participants was 9.6, while their normal counterparts scored 24.51. Moreover, it was indicated that the performance of 6 to 7 year-old hearing-impaired children was better than the 5 to 6 year-old children.    Conclusion: Despite the quick reception through hearing aids, hearing-impaired children are unable to understand abstract and metaphorical concepts although they have an acceptable language competence unless receiving a direct professional training to understand the metaphors. The hearing-impaired children tend to interpret the metaphorical concepts literally and fail to understand the abstract metaphorical concepts. The findings of the present study clearly revealed the necessity of designing a cognitive rehabilitation protocol dedicated to the abstract concepts.

The present study examines language awareness between bilinguals and monolingual children. Language awareness is a person's explicit understanding of language and its role in thinking, learning, and social life, which is associated with executive functioning. Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) test was designed to evaluate executive functioning. The test includes two parts: verbal and non-verbal. In this study, the verbal part including Twenty Questions, Word context, and proverb of D-KEFS was used. Kurdish-Persian bilinguals and Persian monolinguals attended this study. The results showed that in the Twenty Questions, word context, and proverb, there was a significant difference between bilinguals and monolinguals. Bilinguals outperformed monolinguals in both twenty-question and word context tests, while they performed lower on the proverb test. It can be concluded that bilingualism affects language awareness and also influences different aspects of executive funct...

Introduction: Studies show that bilingualism affects cognitive processes. By studying Azeri Turkish-Persian bilinguals and Persian monolinguals, the present study aimed to examine the evidence of the advantages of bilingualism in spatial perspective-takingability and self-regulation. Azeri Turkish bilinguals and Persian monolinguals participated in this study. Methods: The participants in this study included 39 monolingual and bilingual Persian and Turkish students with a mean age of 29 years. To assess the spatial perspective taking ability, the Hegarty Test was used, in which participants were asked to imagine themselves in multiple spatial positions and determine the angle of position of several objects relative to the imagined position. An unsolvable puzzle designed in Persian was used to measure the ability of self-regulation. This unsolvable puzzle was presented to both groups and the duration of their efforts it was considered as an indicator of self-regulation. A more extend...

Abstract In the evaluation of the nature of naming disorders, there is a rapid increase of anomia with the progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which is associated with whole brain atrophy. Although numerous studies have investigated this naming disorder, there is limited information on naming procedures in these patients. Reaction time (RT) is highly sensitive to dementia and provides an accurate measurement. The present study investigated the RT of each underlying level of naming in patients with mild AD and identified the nature of anomia in these patients. The study consisted of 24 healthy elderly and 22 mild AD patients who participated in experiments that were designed for evaluating each level of Levelt’s model. Responses were divided into three groups of correct, false, and no-response and their RTs were calculated. The statistical analyses showed significant differences between healthy elderly and patients with mild AD in terms of access to the concept and the phonological form of the words. Moreover, significant differences in the type of responses were observed between correct and false responses of both groups. There was a significant difference between the no-response cases except in the case of lemma access for singular and plural names in other tasks. The results suggest that patients with mild AD have problems at the conceptual stage and access to the phonological form of a word.

The aim of this paper is to investigate alignment in L1–L2 dialogue. More specifically, I examine to what extent alignment in L1–L2 is different from alignment in L1–L1 dialogue. I investigate different variables that may affect linguistic alignment in the course of L1–L2 dialogue. As more variables, such as differences in language proficiency of interlocutors, affect the linguistic alignment in L1–L2 dialogue, it appears that linguistic alignment in L1–L2 dialogue is different from linguistic alignment in L1–L1 dialogue both quantitatively and quantitatively. I also discuss the mechanisms that permit lexical alignment during dialogue. This study interprets the alignment process in terms of the activation threshold hypothesis (Paradis 1993) and a link is made between the activation threshold hypothesis and Pickering and Garrods’ (2013) account that language production and language comprehension are interwoven. Based on Swiss multilingualism, language selection is proposed as the mac...

This paper investigates the production of Persian–English bilingual compound verbs (BCVs) of the type [VERB+VERB]. In this type of code-switched structure, a lexical verb from the donor language English is combined with a light verb from the native language Persian. We tested the hypothesis that in Persian–English BCVs English verbs occupy the nominal slots of monolingual Persian complex predicates of the type [NOMINAL+VERB]. Two methodologies were used. A conversational-corpus analysis confirmed our predictions that Persian–English BCVs have translation-equivalent Persian compound verbs, that the English verbs denote the same action as the nominal constituents of those monolingual constructions, and that the support verbs tend to correspond in both types of compound verbs. A bilingual picture-word interference experiment provided evidence suggesting that English verbs interfere with the production of the nominal constituents of complex Persian verbs in Persian-bilingual speakers. W...

In this study, I report three experiments that examined whether words from one language of bilinguals can use the syntactic features form the other language, and how such syntactic co-activation might influence syntactic processing. In other words, I examined whether there are any cases in which an inherent syntactic feature a lexical item is inhibited and the syntactic feature that belongs to the other language is used, instead. In the non-switch condition in Experiments 1 and 2, Persian-English bilinguals described pictures using an adjective-noun string from the same language requested. In the switch condition, they used a noun and an adjective from the other language. In the switch condition in Experiment 3, participants used only the adjective of a noun phrase from the other language. The results showed that bilinguals may inhibit the activation of a word’s syntactic feature and use the syntactic property from the other language, instead (e.g., pirāhane (shirt-N) black). As the...

The aim of this paper is to investigate alignment in L1–L2 dialogue. More specifically, I examine to what extent alignment in L1–L2 is different from alignment in L1–L1 dialogue. I investigate different variables that may affect linguistic alignment in the course of L1–L2 dialogue. As more variables, such as differences in language proficiency of interlocutors, affect the linguistic alignment in L1–L2 dialogue, it appears that linguistic alignment in L1–L2 dialogue is different from linguistic alignment in L1–L1 dialogue both quantitatively and quantitatively. I also discuss the mechanisms that permit lexical alignment during dialogue. This study interprets the alignment process in terms of the activation threshold hypothesis (Paradis 1993) and a link is made between the activation threshold hypothesis and Pickering and Garrods’ (2013) account that language production and language comprehension are interwoven. Based on Swiss multilingualism, language selection is proposed as the mac...

In this study, I report three experiments that examined whether words from one language of bilinguals can use the syntactic features form the other language, and how such syntactic co-activation might influence syntactic processing. In other words, I examined whether there are any cases in which an inherent syntactic feature a lexical item is inhibited and the syntactic feature that belongs to the other language is used, instead. In the non-switch condition in Experiments 1 and 2, Persian-English bilinguals described pictures using an adjective-noun string from the same language requested. In the switch condition, they used a noun and an adjective from the other language. In the switch condition in Experiment 3, participants used only the adjective of a noun phrase from the other language. The results showed that bilinguals may inhibit the activation of a word's syntactic feature and use the syntactic property from the other language, instead [e.g., pirāhane (shirt-N) black]. As...

Given the significant role of conceptual metaphors in understanding abstract concepts in the children's development, the present study was conducted for designing and standardization a test of embodied conceptual metaphors in the Persian language. The test administrations will allow us to investigate the process of understanding abstract concepts in normal five-to-seven-year-old children. In the present study, 171 embodied conceptual metaphors were extracted from the Persian dictionaries. The metaphors were related to four sensory-motor organs i.e. ears, eyes, hands, and legs. The researchers attempted to investigate the understanding of abstract concepts by using conceptual metaphors in 30 five-to-seven-year-old children having a normal development. 39 metaphors having more than 30% of correct answers were selected. In the next phase, a test was designed that was composed of two parts (audio and visual) based on these 39 metaphors; the understanding of abstract concepts were investigated in 200 five-to-seven Persian speakers. Based on the mean score acquired from both age groups, given the development process of abstract concepts, it was indicated that in comparison to five-to-six-year-old children, six-to-sevenyear-old children showed a better performance for understanding abstract concepts; the difference was significant. Moreover, the findings of the present study indicated that in comparison to the visual test, children had a better performance in responding to the audio test. Moreover, the boys and girls were not significantly different regarding understanding abstract concepts. The findings of the present study can be applied in rehabilitating and treating the disorders related to the understanding of abstract concepts.

↑What is "already known" in this topic: Our conceptual structures are embodied. Up to cognitive linguistic studies, it is not merely a figure of speech or a form of literary expression but an active process in the human cognitive system. →What this article adds: The hearing-impaired children tend to interpret the metaphorical concepts literally and fail to understand the abstract metaphorical concepts.
Abstract
Background: In cognitive linguistics, the key factor in understanding of the abstract and metaphorical concepts is the individuals' embodied experiences sensed by their body. Therefore, a better understanding of abstract concepts requires healthy senses and feelings. Hearing impairment leads to disorders in understanding abstract concepts. The present study is aimed to investigate the differences between 5 to 7 year-old Persian-speaking hearing-impaired children and their normal counterparts in terms of understanding embodied conceptual metaphors.
Methods: The present study was conducted on twenty 5 to 7 year-old Persian-speaking children with moderate to severe hearing impairment. The study investigated the participants' understanding of abstract concepts when using embodied metaphors in four sensory-motor organs (the eyes, ears, hands and legs) through conducting a researcher-made task including both audio and audiovisual sections. The results of the hearing-impaired children were compared with the performance of 200 normal children.
Results: The findings of the present study indicated a significantly lower mean score of hearing-impaired children compared to their normal peers. The mean score of hearing-impaired participants was 9.6, while their normal counterparts scored 24.51. Moreover, it was indicated that the performance of 6 to 7 year-old hearing-impaired children was better than the 5 to 6 year-old children.
Conclusion: Despite the quick reception through hearing aids, hearing-impaired children are unable to understand abstract and metaphorical concepts although they have an acceptable language competence unless receiving a direct professional training to understand the metaphors. The hearing-impaired children tend to interpret the metaphorical concepts literally and fail to understand the abstract metaphorical concepts. The findings of the present study clearly revealed the necessity of designing a cognitive rehabilitation protocol dedicated to the abstract concepts.

Efficiency of Metaphorical Stories and Literal Instructions on Attention and Response Control in Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder Children
Zahra mehrpure, Alireza Moradi* Hossein Dabbagh, Maryam Moghaddasin, Mehdi pur mohammad
Abstract
Introduction: The objective of this study was assess the efficiency of metaphorical stories and literal instructions on attention and response control in 10-12 years old children with Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder.
Materials & Methods: This research is a quasi-experimental design with pre-test, post-test - follow-up with control group. Participants were selected from 10 to 12 year-old clients of Shiraz education counseling centers who had been diagnosed by a psychiatrist with attention deficit / hyperactivity disorder. Initial sampling was done according to the available sampling method (diagnosed by a psychiatrist and a psychologist) and was randomly divided into 4 groups of 8 subjects. Three groups of children received verbal intervention in three different ways, including metaphorical stories with musical backgrounds, metaphorical stories without musical backgrounds and simple verbal instructions during 6 sessions for a month and a half. After performing the interventions, data were analyzed by SPSS 23 software using one way ANOVA and two-way repeated measures analysis of variance.
Results: Attention and response control scores significantly increased in all experimental and control groups; however there were no significant differences among 4 groups with various intervention methods.
Conclusion: This study shows that all verbal and nonverbal interventions in groups help children to increase their attention and response control, although there is no significant differences between experimental and control groups. According to increase attention and response control scores in all groups, it seems that being a member of a small group can help ADHD children to improve their attention and response control.
Key words: Attention Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder, Metaphor, Attention, Response Control, Child, Verbal Intervention

In the evaluation of the nature of naming disorders, there is a rapid increase of anomia with the progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which is associated with whole brain atrophy. Although numerous studies have investigated this naming disorder, there is limited
information on naming procedures in these patients. Reaction time (RT) is highly sensitive to dementia and provides an accurate measurement. The present study investigated the RT of each underlying level of naming in patients with mild AD and identified the nature of anomia in these patients. The study consisted of 24 healthy elderly and 22 mild AD patients who participated in experiments that were designed for evaluating each level of Levelt’s model. Responses were divided into three groups of correct, false, and no-response and their RTs were calculated. The statistical analyses showed significant differences between healthy elderly and patients with mild AD in terms of access to the concept and the phonological form of the words. Moreover, significant differences in the type of responses were observed between correct and false responses of both groups. There was a significant difference between the no-response cases except in the case of lemma access for singular and plural names in other tasks. The results suggest that patients with mild AD have problems at the conceptual stage and access to the phonological form of a word.

In this study, I report three experiments that examined whether words from one language of bilinguals can use the syntactic features form the other language, and how such syntactic co-activation might influence syntactic processing. In other words, I examined whether there are any cases in which an inherent syntactic feature a lexical item is inhibited and the syntactic feature that belongs to the other language is used, instead. In the non-switch condition in Experiments 1 and 2, Persian-English bilinguals described pictures using an adjective-noun string from the same language requested. In the switch condition, they used a noun and an adjective from the other language. In the switch condition in Experiment 3, participants used only the adjective of a noun phrase from the other language. The results showed that bilinguals may inhibit the activation of a word’s syntactic feature and use the syntactic property from the other language, instead (e.g., pirāhane (shirt-N) black). As the combinatorial node (the node that specifies different kinds of syntactic structures in which a word can be used) of a used adjective retains activation at least temporarily, bilinguals are more likely to use the same combinatorial node even with an adjective from the other language. Cross-language syntactic interference increased in the switch conditions. Moreover, more inappropriate responses were observed when switching from bilinguals’ L2 to L1. The results also revealed that different experimental contexts may lead to different patterns of the control mechanism. The results will be interpreted in terms of Hartsuiker and Pickering’s (2008) model of syntactic representation.

The aim of this paper is to investigate alignment in L1–L2 dialogue. More specifically, I examine to what extent alignment in L1–L2 is different from alignment in L1–L1 dialogue. I investigate different variables that may affect linguistic alignment in the course of L1–L2 dialogue. As more variables, such as differences in language proficiency of interlocutors, affect the linguistic alignment in L1–L2 dialogue, it appears that linguistic alignment in L1–L2 dialogue is different from linguistic alignment in L1–L1 dialogue both quantitatively and quantitatively. I also discuss the mechanisms that permit lexical alignment during dialogue. This study interprets the alignment process in terms of the activation threshold hypothesis (Paradis 1993) and a link is made between the activation threshold hypothesis and Pickering and Garrods’ (2013) account that language production and language comprehension are interwoven. Based on Swiss multilingualism, language selection is proposed as the macro-linguistic alignment process.

انجمن علمی علوم انسانی دیجیتال و زبان‌های خارجی و زبان‌شناسی دانشگاه شیراز با همکاری کارگروه عصب-روانشناسی زبان شاخه دانشجویی نقشه‌برداری مغز ایران برگزار می‌کند:

👈 پنل آنلاین با موضوع:
عصب-روانشناسی زبان

👈 سخنرانان:
♦️دکتر محمد مؤمنیان
عضو هیئت علمی دانشگاه پلی تکنیک هنگ کنگ

♦️ دکتر مهدی پورمحمد
عضو هیئت علمی پژوهشکده علوم شناختی و مغز، دانشگاه شهید بهشتی

♦️ دکتر شیما نبی‌فر
دکترای زبان‌شناسی همگانی از دانشگاه علامه طباطبایی / مدرس دانشگاه الزهرا

♦️ دکتر محمد نامی
مدیر گروه علوم اعصاب دانشگاه علوم پزشکی شیراز

♦️ دکتر رامین گلشایی
عضو هیئت علمی دانشگاه الزهرا

♦️ دکتر مولود صفوی
مدیر مؤسسه دانش زبان و مغز / مدیر دپارتمان آموزش کمپانی نوروتکنولوژی (ANT Neuro)

👈 زمان:
پنج‌شنبه ۹ اردیبهشت ۱۴۰۰
جمعه ۱۰ اردیبهشت ۱۴۰۰
ساعت ۸ صبح الی ۲ ظهر