Multidimensional scaling (MDS) is a multivariate statistical technique that can be used to define subsystems of functionally connected brain regions based on the analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Here we introduce three-way multidimensional scaling as a method for the analysis of a group of fMRI data, which yields both a generic interregional configuration in low-di...

In studies of mental counting, participants are faster to increment a count that was just incremented (no-switch trial) than to increment a different count (switch trial). Investigators have attributed the effect to a shift in the internal focus of attention on switch trials. Here we report evidence for other bottom-up and top-down contributions. Two stimuli were mapped to each of two counts. T...

UNLABELLED Two types of serial word recall tasks (full verbal recall and probed recall) were administered to 11 children with language impairment and 22 language-normal children matched for productive language or chronological age. The methods were designed to take into account age-related differences in the use of subvocal rehearsal, as measured by the word length effect. The word length effec...

Electromyographic studies of subvocal speech are evaluated with two different aims: (1)a methodological review of controls for nonspeech artifact and of data analysis techniques, and (2) a review of substantive findings and suggestions for future research. A highly effective procedure, involving manipulation of phoneme content in certain trials, has been developed to control nonspeech artifact ...

The present study aims to demonstrate that errors when writing are more common than expected in patients affected by primary lateral sclerosis (PLS) with severe dysarthria or complete mutism, independent of spasticity. Sixteen patients meeting Pringle's et al. [34] criteria for PLS underwent standard neuropsychological tasks and evaluation of writing. We assessed writing abilities in spelling t...

We know from everyday experience that when we need to keep a small amount of verbal information "in mind" for a short period, an effective cognitive strategy is to silently rehearse the words. This basic cognitive strategy has been elegantly codified in Baddeley and colleagues model of verbal working memory, the phonological loop. Here we explore how the intuitive appeal of the phonological loo...

Regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) was measured with positron emission tomography (PET) when 11 subjects made plausibility judgments about written sentences that varied in their syntactic complexity. While making their judgments, subjects uttered the word "double" aloud at a rate of one utterance per second to inhibit their ability to rehearse the sentences. Blood flow increased in Broca's are...

Ubiquitous speech processing involves listening to speech in ecological environments where noise is often present. The current study investigates the neural mechanisms involved in perceiving speech in noise using a sparse sampling fMRI method. Subjects were asked to match auditorily presented words with picture choices. The auditory stimuli were either presented in quiet or embedded in multi-ta...