Séance de présentations par affiches

Although patients with resection of the temporal or insular lobes following epilepsy present some cognitive changes, speech and language changes remain very little studied. Since they are partly underpinned by temporal and/or insular regions, semantic memory, prosody, and motor aspects of speech are domains of great interest in these patients. However, no study has used an ecological task of spontaneous speech to compare semantic skills, prosodic skills and motor aspects of speech using a semi-automated analysis between patients with lobectomy and control subjects. 

15 patients who underwent temporal lobectomy (7 right, 8 left), 10 patients who underwent insular lobectomy (5 right, 4 left), 5 patients who underwent temporo-insular lobectomy and 15 control subjects were enrolled. These participants completed an adapted version of the Autobiographical Interview task (Levine et al., 2002). During this task, participants produced three memories of their personal lives of negative, neutral and positive valence. The speech sample was recorded as an audio file and transcribed into text. From the audio recordings, the prosodic and speech variables will be extracted using an automated script on the Praat software. From the text transcription, semantic variables will be extracted using an automated natural language processing script. In terms of analyses, group comparisons of speech variables are planned (depending on the location and laterality of the lesion). 

We hypothesize that patients with temporal lobectomy will show semantic alterations, and that the patients with left temporal lobectomy will show greater semantic alterations than patients with right temporal lobectomy. We also hypothesize that patients with right temporal or insular lobectomy will show alterations in expressive prosody, and that the patients with left insular lobectomy will show alterations in the motor aspects of speech. No results are available yet but will be ready for November. 

Background : Irregular word reading has been widely used to estimate premorbid intelligence in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia as it was thought to resist cognitive decline. However, reading models highlight the core influence of semantic abilities on irregular word reading, which shows early decline in AD. This study aims to determine whether irregular word reading is a valid estimate of premorbid intelligence, or a marker of cognitive and semantic decline in AD.

Method : Irregular word reading was assessed with the American National Adult Reading Test (AmNART) in 681 healthy controls (HC), 104 subjective cognitive decline, 290 early and 589 late mild cognitive impairment (EMCI, LMCI) and 348 AD. Multiple linear regressions predicted AmNART score using diagnostic category, general cognitive impairment and semantic tests. Generalized logistic mixed-effects model predicted correct reading using psycholinguistic characteristics of AmNART words. Deformation-based morphometry assessed the AmNART-brain volumes voxel-wise relationship as well as within the left anterior temporal lobe (ATL), a region of interest.

Results : EMCI, LMCI and AD made more errors reading irregular words compared to HC, AD patients making more than all groups. Across the AD continuum and within each diagnostic group, irregular word reading was correlated to measures of general cognitive impairment. Irregular word reading was primarily correlated to neuropsychological tests of lexicosemantics as opposed to executive functioning and episodic memory. Reading accuracy was strongly explained by age of acquisition, a primarily semantic variable, phonological variables not contributing. Neuroimaging analyses pointed to bilateral hippocampal and left ATL volume loss as the main contributors to decreased irregular word reading performances.  

Conclusions : Irregular word reading performances decline throughout the AD continuum, premorbid intelligence estimates based on it should not be considered accurate in MCI or AD. Results are consistent with the theory of irregular word reading impairments as an indicator of disease severity and semantic decline. 

Depuis que les langues sont langues, les échanges et les rencontres entre groupes linguistiques ont pratiquement toujours été la norme. Dans ce contexte, les langues sont souvent devenues un élément fondateur dans la création des identités collectives. Les langues ont créé des guerres, ont justifié l’occupation, la colonisation, le génocide culturel… (Calvet, 1974). Mais si parfois ces épisodes violents tombent dans l’oubli, la proposition que je vous fais aujourd’hui cherche à démontrer que la pratique linguistique, elle, se souvient.

Ma présentation pour le VocUM 2023 s’inscrira dans un projet de recherche plus large, celui de rassembler et de détailler, exemples à l’appui, différents éléments qui font de la pratique linguistique une excellente gardienne de la mémoire des collectivités : les traits phonétiques ou phonologiques, les objets culturels (les chansons par exemple), les emprunts linguistiques ou même tout le processus linguistique d’étiolement ou de disparition d’une langue minorisée (Kremnitz, 2011).

Pour l’instant, je me concentrerai sur les traits phonétiques ou phonologiques reconnus comme étant portés par des accents, mais qui figureraient en fait parmi les reliques de langues pratiquement disparues. Les deux cas étudiés dans ce cadre seront l’accent méridional en français et l’accent écossais en anglais, et je tâcherai, à travers la littérature qui accompagne les accents et les langues ancestrales, de retracer les éléments porteurs de mémoire. D’abord, qui se souvient encore, par exemple, de comment la France postrévolutionnaire a forcé le monolinguisme français à travers tout l’Hexagone, faisant quasiment disparaître en moins d’un siècle tout l’héritage linguistique d’un si grand nombre de familles (Boyer, 1990 ; Cerquiglini, 2003) ? Si très peu parlent encore aujourd’hui de cet épisode de l’histoire en France, les traits du français méridional, directement hérités de l’occitan ou du provençal (Lonnemann  et Meisenburg, 2009), en témoignent encore, à leur manière. Ensuite, grâce entre autres à une vaste étude sociolinguistique sur la pratique linguistique à Glasgow (Macaulay, 1977), j’identifierai les traits de l’accent écossais contemporain qui appartiennent directement au gaélique écossais tel qu’il était parlé dans la région et tel qu’il est encore pratiqué par une minorité de locuteurs dans le nord de l’Écosse.

In this talk, we present our joint work dealing with Memory, Language, Oral History, and Storytelling, which we have placed under the general term Social Heterophony¹. We will emphasize the relevance of some aspects and techniques used by Verbatim Theatre, Documentary Theatre, and Oral History Performance², for the study of Language and Memory, when they are complemented with techniques and methodologies we have developed, techniques inspired by, amongst others :

1. Heterophonic practices in the context of orally transmitted musical traditions (« Heterophony » refers to a musical texture in which several different (musical) sentences can be considered the « same » sentence. The differences might be explained by referring to interpretational mechanisms/algorithms; or, as analyzed in Royer-Artuso 2012a, 2012b, and 2019, as reflecting orality and mnemonic (natural) processes);
2. Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed and the different techniques he has developed over the years (e.g. Boal 1974, and 2005);
3. The work of Bartlett (1932) and his followers (see also Chafe 1980);
4. Pragmatics and Discourse analysis; and
5. Theatrical and/or traditional Storytelling techniques.

Research questions : An actor who memorizes a text always has the text to come back to when he/she is not sure that it was memorized correctly. When a text is read or listened to only one time and that the possibility to come back to the text does not exist, the situation is extremely different.

1) What does the actor do when he/she has to tell a story that is memorized this way (one presentation of the text or recording)? How does this method of learning influence how the story will be told, especially when we ask the actor to fill in the story with some details that were not available in the text (when we ask the actor to act as a dramaturg as well)? What does happen to the same story when it is distributed among many storytellers: do they all come with the same stories after some time has passed? In what way does it change from a person to the other and what are the causes of these changes?

2) What happens when we present the same story told by different storytellers to an audience, with all the variants that appeared in the process of learning and telling the story, with all the details that were added by the actors? How will the audience retell the story? How will they understand what happened to the characters in the story? What will they do with the details and especially with the ones that do not hold together (e.g. one detail added by one of the storytellers does not fit with one added by another storyteller)?

Briefly : We want to explore the question of the relation(s) between Language, Memory and Collective Dramaturgy in a Forum in the context of Collective Storytelling in the absence of a remaining text (in the context of an orally transmitted story).

Notes

¹ This work is the result of a collaboration between:

1. a) Nicolas Royer-Artuso –linguist; musician/musicologist working on musical traditions that are orally transmitted; and theatre practitioner. Nicolas Royer-Artuso has just finished in April a two years long post-doc in linguistics; and

1. b) Ülfet Sevdi –theatre/performance theoretician; director; writer; dramaturge; and Theatre of the Oppressed facilitator. Ülfet Sevdi is in the PhD INDI program at Concordia concentrating on performance theory, in which she builds on the theoretical work and methodologies (Performative Acting) she created, developed, and discussed in her Master Thesis and elsewhere.

This joint work has been started in 2012, and presented in different forms to audiences as Aktarıcılar I, II, and III as the results of workshops with actors, and in the form of public interactive Forums in Istanbul (2012-2014). It has been presented as a workshop (Social heterophony, compulsive storytelling and the manipulation of memory) at Mixed Company, Toronto (2015), and at Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal (2016), and presented as a conference-performance at the IUGTE Multidisciplinary conference at Retzhof castle, Austria (2017).

² For a good introduction, see the articles in Pollock (Ed.) (2005).

References cited

Bartlett, Frederic C. 1932. Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Boal, Augusto. 2005. Games for Actors and Non-Actors. Routledge.

Boal, Augusto. 2008 [1974]. Theatre of the Oppressed. Pluto Press.

Chafe, Wallace (Ed.). 1980. The Pear Stories. Norwood: Ablex.

Pollock, Della (Ed.). 2005. Remembering: Oral History Performance. Palgrave Macmillan.

Royer-Artuso, Nicolas. 2012a. Une Approche Réaliste du Phénomène Hétérophonique (Quelque chose dépasse…). Revue des Traditions Musicales des Mondes Arabe et Méditerranéen, RTMMAM, 6 « Sémiotique et psychocognition des monodies modales (1) », Baabda/Paris, Éditions de l’Université Antonines/ Éditions Geuthner.

Royer-Artuso, Nicolas. 2012b. Rousseau, la République et l’Esthétique Musicale Turque. Littera Edebiyat Yazılari, Istanbul.

Royer-Artuso, Nicolas. 2019. Formulating the Essence all Together. In: Of Essence & Context: Between Music and Philosophy. (Eds.) Stanevičiūtė, Rūta, Nick Zangwill, and Rima Povilionienė. Springer.

La voix de la Malintzin (Sautto, Fonseca, 2015) est un livre de jeunesse qui permet d’approcher les jeunes lectrices et lecteurs à un mythe très ancien fondé à partir de la colonisation d’ d’Abya Yala – territoire connu comme Amérique Latine –, par les Espagnols en 1519. Malintzin était une femme d’origine Nahua esclavagée et donnée par les Mayas aux colonisateurs Espagnols. Étant donné qu’elle parlait plusieurs langues, elle a joué le rôle d’interprète et médiatrice entre les ethnies locales et les envahisseurs Espagnols. De quelle manière l’analyse de ce mythe avec un point de vue féministe (Harding, 1991), et plus concrètement à travers certains éléments méthodologiques des féminismes décoloniales (Cabnal, 2015, Ochy Curiel, 2022, Yurdekys Espinosa, 2022, Gargallo, 2012) pourrait nous permettre de comprendre la revendication collective des voix des femmes qui se mobilisent contre la censure politique des dominations colonialistes et patriarcales (A. Gil, 2021, Teroba 2023, Marcos, 2017), et qui nous invitent à devenir des allié-e-s de cette lutte pour la justice sociale?

Background : Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by difficulties in visuospatial and visuoperceptual abilities that is most often caused by Alzheimer’s disease (AD) underlying pathology. The diagnostic criteria propose that other cognitive functions such as language remain relatively unaffected during the initial stages but may decline as the disease progresses. Previous investigations reported inconsistent findings on the language functions in PCA, and no study has focused on PCA in the early stages of the disease. This study aimed to investigate language dysfunctions on PCA patients across different components, with comparison to other dementia conditions.

Methods : We conducted a comparative analysis of four distinct groups: a cohort of patients diagnosed with PCA (n=105) and a control group of demographic-matched healthy controls (HC; n=165), as well as patients from two other variants of AD, Logopenic Variant Primary Progressive Aphasia (lvPPA; n=116) and Typical Amnestic Alzheimer’s disease (tAD, n=105). All patients were in early stages of the disease as they scored 1 or less on CDR-global scale. They received language tasks that covered verbal fluency, reading, naming repetition and association. We recruited these groups from the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center (NACC) dataset.

Result : The results indicated that patients with PCA demonstrated a widespread decline across all evaluated language domains in comparison to HC. Furthermore, PCA performed significantly worse than tAD in naming and reading tasks. While PCA patients overall showed milder language impairments compared to lvPPA, they performed worse than lvPPA in tasks involving semantic-word picture matching, association, and regular word reading.

Discussion : PCA patients show widespread impairments in language function even in the early stages of the disease, including in domains that are not related to the core visual impairments. These results improve comprehension of the distinct language profile in PCA and carry significant implications for diagnostic assessments (versus HC but also other AD variants) and intervention approaches. 

Background : Difficulties in attention and memory can impact a child’s ability to understand language (receptive language). Poor language development more largely is associated with children’s difficulties to manage emotions, to communicate feelings, and to establish relationships. While some studies have linked language difficulties to later externalizing and internalizing problems, little is known about suicide risk.

Objective : To investigate the association between language development during childhood and suicidal attempt in adolescence and young adulthood. We hypothesized that poor language development will increase one’s risk of suicide attempt later in life.

Methods : We used data from the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (N=1624). Childhood language abilities (receptive vocabulary) have been assessed at ages 3, 5, 6, and 10 years, while suicide attempt has been assessed at ages 13-23 years. Univariable and multivariable analyses were conducted to investigate the associations between language abilities and suicide attempt. 

Results : Associations between childhood receptive vocabulary scores and suicide attempt later in adolescence and young adulthood vary depending on both sex and age. In females, lower scores at 3 years old, but not at later assessments, were associated with increased odds of attempting suicide by age 23. In males, higher vocabulary scores at age 10, but not earlier, were associated with increasing odds of attempting suicide by age 23. These associations hold after adjustment for family socioeconomic status, childhood behavioral symptoms, and parental characteristics.

Importance : Receptive language skills at specific developmental periods may be a marker of later suicide risk. It is important to better understand sex- and age-related differences in these associations to improve early identification of children at risk.