There is an established association between children's oral vocabulary and their word reading but its basis is not well understood. Here, we present evidence from eye movements for a novel mechanism underlying this association. Two groups of 18 Grade 4 children received oral vocabulary training on one set of 16 novel words (e.g., 'nesh', 'coib'), but no training on another set. The words were assigned spellings that were either predictable from phonology (e.g., nesh) or unpredictable (e.g., koyb). These were subsequently shown in print, embedded in sentences. Reading times were shorter for orally familiar than unfamiliar items, and for words with predictable than unpredictable spellings but, importantly, there was an interaction between the two: children demonstrated a larger benefit of oral familiarity for predictable than for unpredictable items. These findings indicate that children form initial orthographic expectations about spoken words before first seeing them in print. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/jvpJwpKMM3E.

Objective: To report on the relationship between quality of life (QOL), psychiatric symptoms and neuropsychological functioning in a sample of young people who have experienced a first episode of psychosis 2-3 years following initial presentation. Method: Fifty-one participants aged 15-27 years old completed the short form of the World Health Organization Quality of Life scale (WHOQOL-Brèf), a self-report instrument assessing physical, psychological, social and environmental aspects of QOL. A comprehensive neuropsychological battery was administered. Measures of psychiatric symptoms including depression (as assessed by the Calgary Depression Scale), positive, negative and general psychopathology (as assessed by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale) were obtained. Results: Multiple regression analyses were used to evaluate the ability of neuropsychological measures and psychiatric symptoms to predict QOL. When neuropsychological variables were considered on their own, cognitive flexibility, verbal fluency, verbal ability and sustained attention explained up to 28% of the variance in the four domains of QOL. However, in the presence of psychiatric symptoms, neuropsychological variables were no longer significant predictors for physical and psychological QOL; depression, general psychopathology and negative symptoms together explained up to 43% of the variance in QOL, with neuropsychological variables remaining significant for social and environmental QOL. Conclusions: In young people with their first episode of psychosis, QOL is more strongly related to levels of psychopathology, particularly depression, than neuropsychological deficits. This finding replicates previous studies in chronic schizophrenia that have suggested QOL is more strongly related to levels of psychopathology than the presence of neuropsychological deficits.

Objective: To report on the relationship between quality of life (QOL), psychiatric symptoms and neuropsychological functioning in a sample of young people who have experienced a first episode of psychosis 2-3 years following initial presentation. Method: Fifty-one participants aged 15-27 years old completed the short form of the World Health Organization Quality of Life scale (WHOQOL-Brèf), a self-report instrument assessing physical, psychological, social and environmental aspects of QOL. A comprehensive neuropsychological battery was administered. Measures of psychiatric symptoms including depression (as assessed by the Calgary Depression Scale), positive, negative and general psychopathology (as assessed by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale) were obtained. Results: Multiple regression analyses were used to evaluate the ability of neuropsychological measures and psychiatric symptoms to predict QOL. When neuropsychological variables were considered on their own, cognitive flexibility, verbal fluency, verbal ability and sustained attention explained up to 28% of the variance in the four domains of QOL. However, in the presence of psychiatric symptoms, neuropsychological variables were no longer significant predictors for physical and psychological QOL; depression, general psychopathology and negative symptoms together explained up to 43% of the variance in QOL, with neuropsychological variables remaining significant for social and environmental QOL. Conclusions: In young people with their first episode of psychosis, QOL is more strongly related to levels of psychopathology, particularly depression, than neuropsychological deficits. This finding replicates previous studies in chronic schizophrenia that have suggested QOL is more strongly related to levels of psychopathology than the presence of neuropsychological deficits.

No abstract

Grapheme-color synesthesia is an atypical condition in which individuals experience sensations of color when reading printed graphemes such as letters and digits. For some grapheme-color synesthetes, seeing a printed grapheme triggers a sensation of color, but hearing the name of a grapheme does not. This dissociation allowed us to compare the precision with which synesthetes are able to match their color experiences triggered by visible graphemes, with the precision of their matches for recalled colors based on the same graphemes spoken aloud. In six synesthetes, color matching for printed graphemes was equally variable relative to recalled experiences. In a control experiment, synesthetes and age-matched controls either matched the color of a circular patch while it was visible on a screen, or they judged its color from memory after it had disappeared. Both synesthetes and controls were more variable when matching from memory, and the variance of synesthetes' recalled color judgments matched that associated with their synesthetic judgments for visible graphemes in the first experiment. Results suggest that synesthetic experiences of color triggered by achromatic graphemes are analogous to recollections of color.