• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.70-74
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• 2020

Purpose: This study examined whether 1) the motor inhibition response as cognitive-behavioral component is learning though a stop signal task using stop-signal paradigm, and 2) whether there is a difference in the learning degree according to imagery training and actual practice training. Methods: Twenty young adults (males: 9, females: 11) volunteered to participate in this study, and were divided randomly into motor imagery training (IT, n=10) and practice training (PT, n=10) groups. The PT group performed an actual practice stop-signal task, while the IT group performed imagery training, which showed a stop-signal task on a monitor of a personal computer. The non-signal reaction time and stop-signal reaction time of both groups were assessed during the stop-signal task. Results: In the non-signal reaction time, there were no significant intra-group and inter-group differences between pre- and post-intervention in both groups (p>0.05). The stop-signal reaction time showed a significant difference in the PT group in the intra-group analysis (p<0.05). On the other hand, there was no significant intra-group difference in the IT group and inter-group difference between pre- and post-intervention (p>0.05). Conclusion: These results showed that the motor inhibition response could be learned through a stop-signal task. Moreover, these findings suggest that actual practice is a more effective method for learning the motor inhibition response.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.37-43
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• 2011

Purpose: We studied the changes in motor response time and stop signal response time following visuomotor skill learning of a stop signal task in young healthy subjects. This study also was designed to determine what an effective practice is for different stop signals in the stop signal task (SST). Methods: Forty-five right-handed normal volunteers without a history of neurological dysfunction were recruited. They all gave written informed consent. In all subjects, motor reaction time (RT) and stop signal reaction time (SSRT) were measured for the stop signal task. Tasks were classified into three categories: predictable-stop signal task (P-SST) practice group random-stop signal task (R-SST) practice group control group. Results: Motor reaction time in the P-SST was significantly reduced when comparing pre- and post-tests (p<0.05). Stop signal reaction times in the P-SST and the R-SST were significantly reduced following motor skill learning (p<0.05). Also, the reaction time of the R-SST was shorter than that of the P-SST. Conclusion: These findings indicate that practice of an SST improves motor performance and stop function for some stop signals in the SST. P-SST practice was effective in the stop function of regular movement because of faster of the motor prediction and preparation but the R-SST was effective in the stop function of movements because of faster motor selection.

• The Journal of Korean Physical Therapy
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.65-70
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• 2011

Purpose: We investigated the changes in the stop-signal reaction time (SSRT) and the no-signal reaction time (NSRT) following motor sequential learning in the stop-signal task (SST). This study also determined which of the reduction0s of spatial processing time was better between blocked- and random-SST. Methods: Thirty right-handed healthy subjects without a history of neurological dysfunction were recruited. In all subjects, both the SSRT and the NSRT were measured for the SST. Tasks were classified into two categories based on the stop-signal patterns, the blocked-SST practice group and random-SST practice group. All subjects gave written informed consent. Results: In the blocked-SST group, both the SSRT and the NSRT was significantly decreased (p<0.05) but not significantly changed in the random-SST group. In the SSRT and the NSRT, the blocked-SST group was faster than the random-SST group (p<0.05). In the post-test SST after practice of each group, the SSRT was significantly decreased in the random-SST group (p<0.05), but the NSRT showed no significant changes in either group. Conclusion: These findings demonstrate that random-SST practice resulted in a decrease in internal processing times needed for a rapid stop to visual signals, indicating motor skill learning is acquired through improved response selection and inhibition.

• PNF and Movement
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.135-145
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• 2022

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between cognitive and motor inhibition by comparing muscle activity and ground reaction force during unplanned gait termination according to reaction time measured through the stop-signal task. Methods: Sixteen young adults performed a stop-signal task and an unplanned gait termination separately. The subjects were divided into fast and slow groups based on their stop-signal reaction time (SSRT), as measured by the stop-signal task. Electromyography (EMG) and ground reaction force (GRF) were compared between the groups during unplanned gait termination. The data for gait termination were divided into three phases (Phase 1 to 3). The Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare spatiotemporal gait parameters and EMG and GRF data between groups. Results: The slow group had significantly higher activity of the tibialis anterior in Phase 2 and Phase 3 than the fast group (p <0.05). In Phase 1, the fast group had significantly shorter time to peak amplitude (TPA) of the soleus than the slow group (p <0.05). In Phase 2, the TPA of the tibialis anterior was significantly lower in the fast group than the slow group (p <0.05). In Phase 3, there was no significant difference in the GRF between the two groups (p >0.05). There were no significant difference between the two groups in the spatiotemporal gait parameters (p >0.05). Conclusion: Compared to the slow group, the fast group with cognitive inhibition suppressed muscle activity for unplanned gait termination. The association between SSRT and unplanned gait termination shows that a participant's ability to suppress an incipient finger response is relevant to their ability to construct a corrective gait pattern in a choice-demanding environment.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.333-339
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• 2012

Freezing of gait is a severely problem in people with Parkinson's disease. The purpose of this study was to investigate the muscle activities of adductor longus, gluteus medius, gluteus maximus, biceps femoris, rectus femoris, gastrocnemius, and tibialis anterior using Noraxon 8 channels EMG system during stop task in patients with Parkinson's disease. Seven parkinson's patients and age matched normal participants were recruited in the study. Filtered EMG signals were rectified, smoothed and integrated. To control for the altered timing and magnitude of activity, iEMG was normalized for time and peak value. The results indicated that the patients with Parkinson showed decreased gait cycle, stance phase, swing phase time, swing phase time ratio and increased stance phase time ratio than normal participants. The patients with Parkinson showed decreased gastrocnemius muscle activity time ratio, while increased tibialis anterior muscle activity time ratio than normal participants. During stance phase before stop, the patients with Parkinson showed relatively lower average and peak iEMG in anterior tibialis and gastrocnemius muscle than normal participants. During swing phase before stop, the patients with Parkinson showed relatively higher average iEMG in gastrocnemius muscle than normal participants. During stop phase, the patients with Parkinson showed relatively lower average and peak iEMG in anterior tibialis and gastrocnemius muscle than normal participants.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.11-16
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• 2023

The present study examines how a cognitive attention affects Korean learners of English (L2) in perceiving the English stop voicing distinction (/d/-/t/). This study tested the effect of attentional distractor on primary and non-primary acoustic cues, focusing on the role of Voice Onset Time (VOT) and fundamental frequency (F0). Using the dual-task paradigm, 28 Korean adult learners of English participated in the stop identification task carried with (distractor) and without (no-distractor) arithmetic calculation. Results showed that when distracted, Korean learners' sensitivity to VOT decreased as priorly reported with native English speakers. Furthermore, as F0 is a primary cue for a L1 Korean stop laryngeal contrast, its role in L2 English voicing distinction was also affected by a distractor, without compensating for the reduced VOT sensitivity. These findings suggest that flexible use of multiple cues in L1 is not necessarily beneficial for L2 phonological processing when coping with a adverse listening condition.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.45-52
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• 2023

Previous studies have established a role for cognitive differences in explaining variability in speech processing across individuals. In the case of perceptual cue weighting in the context of a sound change, studies have produced conflicting results regarding the relationship between executive function and the use of redundant cues. The current study aimed to explore this relationship in acoustic cue weighting during speech production. Forty-one Korean-speaking children read a list of stop-initial words and completed two tests that assess executive function, i.e., Dimensional Change Card Sorting (DCCS) and digit n-back. Voice onset time (VOT) and fundamental frequency (F0) were measured in each word, and analyses were carried out to determine the extent to which children's executive function predicted their use of both informative and less informative cues to the three pairs comprising the Korean three-way stop laryngeal contrast. No evidence was found for a relationship between cognitive ability and acoustic cue weighting in production, which is at odds with previous, albeit conflicting, results for speech perception. While this result may be due to the lack of task demands in the production task used here, it nevertheless expands the empirical ground upon which future work in this area may proceed.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.1-9
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• 2022

The current study examined English-speaking adult learners' production and perception of L2 Korean stops (/t/ or /t'/ or /t^h/) to investigate whether the two modalities are linked in utilizing voice onset time (VOT) and fundamental frequency (F0) for the L2 sound distinction and how the learners' L2 proficiency mediates the relationship. Twenty-two English-speaking learners of Korean living in Seoul participated in the word-reading task of producing stop-initial words and the identification task of labelling CV stimuli synthesized to vary VOT and F0. Using logistic mixed-effects regression models, we quantified group- and individual-level weights of the VOT and F0 cues in differentiating the tense-lax, lax-aspirated, and tense-aspirated stops in Korean. The results showed that the learners as a group relied on VOT more than F0 both in production and perception (except the tense-lax pair), reflecting the dominant role of VOT in their L1 stop distinction. Individual-level analyses further revealed that the learners' L2 proficiency was related to their use of F0 in L2 production and their use of VOT in L2 perception. With this effect of L2 proficiency controlled in the partial correlation tests, we found a significant correlation between production and perception in using VOT and F0 for the lax-aspirated stop contrast. However, the same correlation was absent for the other stop pairs. We discuss a contrast-specific role of acoustic cues to address the non-uniform patterns of the production-perception link in the L2 sound learning context.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.63-70
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• 2019

This study investigated individual variability of L2 learners' categorical judgments of L2 stops by exploring English learners' perceptual processing of two acoustic cues (voice onset time [VOT] and f0) and working memory capacity as sources of variation. As prior research has reported that English speakers' greater use of the redundant cue f0 was responsible for gradient processing of native stops, we examined whether the same processing characteristics would be observed in L2 learners' perception of Korean stops (/t/-/t^h/). 22 English learners of L2 Korean with a range of L2 proficiency participated in a visual analogue scaling task and demonstrated variable manners of judging the L2 Korean stops: Some were more gradient than others in performing the task. Correlation analysis revealed that L2 learners' categorical responses were modestly related to individuals' utilizations of a primary cue for the stop contrast (VOT for L1 English stops and f0 for L2 Korean stops), and were also related to better working memory capacity. Together, the current experimental evidence demonstrates adult L2 learners' top-down processing of stop consonants where linguistic and cognitive resources are devoted to a process of determining abstract phonemic identity.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.11-17
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• 2018

This study reports on a production experiment designed to investigate how Korean speaking learners of English produce English forms ending in stops. In a repetition experiment, Korean participants listened to English nonce words ending in a stop and repeated what they heard. English speakers were recruited for the same task as a control group. The experimental result indicated that the transcriptions of the Korean productions by English native speakers showed vowel insertion in only 3% of productions although the pronunciation of English final stops showed that noise intervals after the closure of final stops were significantly longer for Korean speakers than for English speakers. This finding is inconsistent with the loanword data where 49% of words showed vowel insertion. It is also not compatible with the perceptual similarity approach, which predicts that because Korean speakers accurately perceive an English final stop as a final consonant, they will insert a vowel to make the English sound more similar to the Korean sound.