Relationship between Verbal and Nonverbal Tests of Auditory Temporal Processing

Background Audiologists may choose to evaluate auditory temporal processing in assessing auditory processing abilities. Some may decide to use measures of nonverbal stimuli such as tonal or noise gap detection. Others may decide to use verbal measures such as time compressed sentences (TCS). Many may choose to use both. Purpose Since people typically come to audiologists for auditory processing testing complaining of problems processing verbal stimuli, the question arises whether measures of nonverbal stimuli provide evidence regarding a person's abilities to processing verbal stimuli. That is, are there significant correlations between measures of verbal stimuli and nonverbal stimuli that are used to evaluate auditory temporal processing? Research Design The present investigation is an exploratory study using file review of 104 people seen for routine auditory processing evaluations by the authors. Study Sample A file review was completed based on data from 104 people seen for auditory processing evaluations. Data Collection and Analyses The data from these 104 files were used to evaluate whether there are any correlations between verbal and nonverbal measures of auditory temporal processing. The verbal measure used was the TCS subtest of the SCAN-3 while the nonverbal measures included the gap detection screening from the SCAN-3 as well as the gaps-in-noise measures. Results from these tests were compared to determine whether any significant correlations were found based on results from Pearson product moment correlational analyses. Results None of the nonverbal measures were found to have a significant correlation with the TCS test findings based on the Pearson correlations used to analyze the data. Conclusion Results indicate that there are no significant correlations (relationships) between measures of auditory temporal processing using nonverbal stimuli versus verbal stimuli based on the tests used in the present investigation. These findings lead to a conclusion that tests using nonverbal stimuli are measuring different auditory processes than the measure of verbal stimuli used in the present investigation. Since people typically come complaining about understanding verbal input, it is concluded that audiologists should use some verbal measure of auditory temporal processing in their auditory processing test battery.

Towards a typology of derivations of verbal measure: Semelfactive and delimitative

The topic of the paper is the semantics of semelfactive and delimitative in a typological perspective. We describe in detail how semantic behavior of these derivations depends on the actional type of the verbal stem. We propose to analyze semelfactive as a situation of minimal duration and delimitative as a non-final portion of a situation. We show how this analysis allows to explain the variety of observed interpretations of the verbal derivatives.

Assessing Cigarette Craving With a Squeeze

We evaluated the utility of a nonverbal, “visceral” measure of cigarette craving (squeezing a handheld dynamometer). Nicotine-deprived daily smokers ( N = 202) underwent a cued (lit cigarette) cigarette-craving manipulation and recorded smoking urge in one of four conditions: (a) report urge using a traditional self-report rating scale (verbal measure) and then indicate urge by squeezing a dynamometer, (b) indicate urge by squeezing and then report urge verbally, (c) indicate urge only by squeezing, or (d) report urge only verbally. As hypothesized, the squeeze measure detected increases in urge during cue exposure, correlated with verbal urge, and predicted subsequent smoking motivation as indexed by smoking latency. Order effects were not observed, indicating that the squeeze measure was predictive of smoking motivation regardless of whether it was administered before or after a verbal urge measure. Squeeze measures may be viable additions to the measurement toolkit for assessing urge and other visceral states.

Visceral States Call for Visceral Measures: Verbal Overshadowing of Hunger Ratings Across Assessment Modalities

We introduce a nonverbal “visceral” measure of hunger (i.e., squeezing a handheld dynamometer) and provide the first evidence of verbal overshadowing effects in this visceral domain. We presented 106 participants with popcorn and recorded their hunger levels in one of three conditions: (1) first report hunger using a traditional self-report rating scale (i.e., verbal measure) and then indicate hunger by squeezing a dynamometer (i.e., nonverbal measure), (2) first indicate hunger nonverbally and then indicate hunger verbally, or (3) indicate hunger only nonverbally. As hypothesized, nonverbal measures of hunger predicted subsequent eating behavior when they were uncontaminated by verbal measures—either because they preceded verbal measures of hunger or because they were the sole measure of hunger. Moreover, nonverbal measures of hunger were a better predictor of eating behavior than verbal measures. Implications of the study for communicating embodied experiences in a way that escapes the confines of symbolic representations are discussed.