Citations

This study explored the effects of various tasks, designed to alter the degree of “attention to stimuli” on the variability of the EEG activity which gives rise to the average acoustically evoked response. Evoked responses to 50 dB SL clicks were recorded from the vertex of eight male subjects under four conditions (1) quiet, (2) .counting, (3) discriminating, and (4) reading. Results showed the quiet condition to yield the greatest variability while reading exhibited the least.

Less than half of a series of 168 patients with multiple sclerosis presented significant speech deviations. The most frequent speech deviations observed were impaired loudness control and harshness; less frequently occurring deviations were defective articulation, restricted use of vocal variations for emphasis, poor pitch control, hypernasality, inappropriate pitch level, and breathiness. “Scanning speech” was not a prominent characteristic. Speech deviations were not solely attributable to cerebellar involvement. Their incidence was positively related to severity of neurologic involvement, becoming more prominent as additional motor systems were implicated.

In five aphasic subjects, picture naming alone was compared with picture naming in the presence of four different auditory cues. Eighty words represented by pictures were associated with the following auditory cues: the first phoneme of the target word; an open-ended sentence designed to elicit the target word; three words, one of which was the target word; three words, all semantically related to the target word. Three conditions—the phonetic cue, the open-ended sentence, and the set of three words containing the target word—facilitated naming significantly. The condition making use of semantically related words resulted in a significant decrease in naming performance. Implications of these findings for theories of verbal recall, impairment of verbal recall in aphasia, and language therapy are discussed.

Cochlear and neural auditory function for a series of 30 patients with acoustic neuroma was assessed pre- and postoperatively by transiently evoked otoacoustic emission (TEOAE), auditory brain stem response (ABR), and acoustic reflex measures. Employing a retrosigmoid surgical approach, physical integrity of the acoustic nerve was preserved for 22 patients. TEOAEs were observed preoperatively for 13 patients and postoperatively for 6 of them. Postoperative neural function remained unchanged or improved following surgery for 7 patients, and cochlear function decreased. TEOAE, ABR, and acoustic reflex measurements were considered valuable in providing information about site of lesion and probable mechanisms of injury associated with tumor removal.