Head copying is a unique process different from learning codes itself

As for Morse code learning is concerned, this study may mean to us head copying is quite different from learning codes itself. We should intentionally train head copying for conversational QSO. 

Hum Brain Mapp. 2015 Nov;36(11):4512-28. doi: 10.1002/hbm.22939. Epub 2015 Aug 25.

From perceptual to lexico-semantic analysis--cortical plasticity enabling new levels of processing.

Schlaffke L1, Rüther NN2, Heba S1, Haag LM1, Schultz T3, Rosengarth K4, Tegenthoff M1, Bellebaum C2,5, Schmidt-Wilcke T1.

Author information

Abstract

Certain kinds of stimuli can be processed on multiple levels. While the neural correlates of different levels of processing (LOPs) have been investigated to some extent, most of the studies involve skills and/or knowledge already present when performing the task. In this study we specifically sought to identify neural correlates of an evolving skill that allows the transition from perceptual to a lexico-semantic stimulus analysis. Eighteen participants were trained to decode 12 letters of Morse code that were presented acoustically inside and outside of the scanner environment. Morse code was presented in trains of three letters while brain activity was assessed with fMRI. Participants either attended to the stimulus length (perceptual analysis), or evaluated its meaning distinguishing words from nonwords (lexico-semantic analysis). Perceptual and lexico-semantic analyses shared a mutual network comprising the left premotor cortex, the supplementary motor area (SMA) and the inferior parietal lobule (IPL). Perceptual analysis was associated with a strong brain activation in the SMA and the superior temporal gyrus bilaterally (STG), which remained unaltered from pre and post training. In the lexico-semantic analysis post learning, study participants showed additional activation in the left inferior frontal cortex (IFC) and in the left occipitotemporal cortex (OTC), regions known to be critically involved in lexical processing. Our data provide evidence for cortical plasticity evolving with a learning process enabling the transition from perceptual to lexico-semantic stimulus analysis. Importantly, the activation pattern remains task-related LOP and is thus the result of a decision process as to which LOP to engage in.

It always happens with aging

This morning, the sky was crystalline blue and I decided to work in the garden again. I needed the sun glass, which was always on a shoe shelf in the entrance room. No, I could not find it there. Wearing this worn out straw hat, I have looked for that for a while. Nothing.

Giving it up, I went back into the house. The sun glass suddenly popped into my sight. Yes, it has been on that old hat while I wore it looking for the glasses.

It always happens to old people. I am convinced to have become an old man now. Yes, I knew of that as a knowledge. But such an experience forces me to learn and accept that as a real fact.

Midsummer is right on the corner

It has been fine and hot all day today. Pulling weeds in the garden, I heard breeze gently quivering the leaves of the magnolia tree. Rustling sound made me feel nostalgic. It was one of the oldest memories in my life. In the sanatorium I was born at, there were high pine trees all around. They sounded quite the same way at that time. I was taking nap close to a window.

Though the forecast won't announce that, it seemed as if the rainy season had been over now. It was boiling hot. Weeding for several minutes, I got sweat streaming. Tomatoes are getting ripe and cropped every day.

A big pumpkin is also growing in the bush. A water melon has been harvested. It was already on the table last night.

Midsummer is right on the corner. It will be the season of sizzling hot weather very soon.

  

The 12th anniversary of father

A broadcast mail from my sister has arrived here this evening. It tells tomorrow will be the 12th anniversary of our father passing at the age of 84 years. I was aware of that anniversary coming soon. But, honestly, I was not sure what day it was in July. She told, getting older, she recalled of our parents more often. So do I. Whenever I look at the house in the same property where they have lived with us for years, or when I stand on the garden where my father used to work, I always remember of them.

It is no use to reflect, I know, that I should have been able to do much more for him especially when he got ill in the end of his life. That thought still often creep into my mind with incurable sadness and regret. Getting this old, I could fully imagine what he thought of in his life those days.

He has born in a fairly wealthy family. His father, that is, my grandfather seemed to be involved in something like juridical scrivener. Both of my grandparents died of tuberculosis when my father and his brothers were very young. All of them were grown under different families of their relatives. My father has not told us too often how hard it was to live at that time. I remember he told us he had had to care for a baby of the family while his friends were playing outside. Though my father wished to study more when he finished compulsory education, the situation in the family he had been taken care of did not allow him that.

He has spent his youth in the military service. He has been sent to China for a few years where he has experienced most inhuman and absurd reality in war. I don't know how he have known my mother. It seemed he had been to the sanatorium my aunt managed at this place those days, where he has met her. I have written of his story after this elsewhere in this blog. In short, they have got married and was given 3 children, all of whom have worked as doctors and a nurse later.
When that sanatorium was closed, my father took his family to Tokyo. All of his children were grown up there while my father used to work as personnel of hospitals. He has worked real hard. He has lived in belief in Christianity since the sanatorium days. He was not a perfect person at all in his character or behaviour. But he used to attend to church as if he would get something necessary to live on. My sister told in that mail she remembered him reading Bible in a dark room at the apartment those days.

Retired in his 60s in Tokyo, he has moved and settled down here at this place where aunt had the sanatorium. In a few years, finishing residency at a med school hospital nearby, we joined them building our home in the same property. We owed much to father for house keeping or caring for children while both of us worked hard at hospitals and, later, at own practices. It must be his most peaceful days ever in his life. Suffered from liver cancer, he has finished his life at age of 84 years.

In the last years of his life, he has been concerned about the responsibility for the WWII. No one has taken it. Remained unanswered to that question, the post war regime has started and carried on to the present time. I guess that was his inquiry. It must be a question which could not help coming up in his mind because the war had deprived him of his youth and the colleagues and the people in China of lives. I was surprised to have found many books regarding of the modern history of our country in addition to those regarding Christianity. I was not surprised to have found the voluminous biography of Showa Emperor titled as Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan in his book shelf. I guess he has reached the problem of emperor system as a cause of WWII. It was a surprise that I had been conscious of the same problem to overcome the absurdity in the post war regime. I could have discussed more on this issue if I had known of sharing the same problem consciousness with him while he was alive. I could not help asking myself with much bitterness what he would say seeing what is going on in our country. I mean the movement toward the prewar regime by the leading party now. I sure should do against that movement partly on behalf of him.

I would clean the house our parents used to live recalling of them tomorrow.

Thanks for reading this lengthy and discursive story. Forgive me for my age.

Father and our 2nd son in 1980s.

Carrot and kidney bean wrapped with pork

It is broiled with soy sauce and sake. I have never tried this before. This summer, kidney beans are in big crop. That's why I tried this recipe. A bit charred but pretty good. I should investigate new recipes for kidney beans.

An unforgettable concert

I have uploaded a post about this music here. It is one of the most favorite musics for me.

This concert was held in Tokyo in 2007 as the farewell concert of Karl Leister, a German clarinet player. I have seen this program on TV at my room of office in 2008. 

They have played this piece with extraordinary passion. Their ardor seems to go climax at the last movement. I have mentioned this movement as one of the best variations Brahms composed. It is as if flaring up in the end of life. The keynote is still resignation to life. The beginning theme in the 1st movement is recalled in imperfect form in the end. The music ends with dark accord of the tonality.

The players stayed immobile for several seconds until the audience started eagerly clapping their hands. We feel it were much longer. In the silence, we would recall of the music played as well as of our lives in the past. Leister might recollect his pleasant trips to Japan in the past. He seems to have hie eyes filled with tears. Their performance has had that persuasive power to themselves as well as to the audience. The violist tenderly tapped him on his shoulder. 

I have never seen such a moving performance of this piece, not only this one but all of chamber musics. I am happy to share this experience with all the performers and audience in this concert.  

Visiting a young luthier

I have visited the luthier whom I mentioned in the previous post. It was for regular check up of my instrument and rehairing of the bow. I have mentioned how I knew of him in that post. It has been over a decade since I first knew him.

His office is on the 1st floor of a building. The other tenants than his seemed closed by now. There were a lot of stores or offices closed even along the main street of that city. It is quite common. They call such a street as a shuttered street. Undoubtedly, it is because of the receded economy in such a countryside and the aging and reduced population having started in such a city.

When I came in his office, he was doing some work at his work bench/table. Being aware of my visit there, he stood up smiling at me. It seemed the time is flowing slowly at a tempo particular to him or to his office. He asked me if I had had any trouble with the cello as if a doctor asked a patient for history of illness. Nothing particular. Then, examining the instrument with inspection and percussion, he told me to play with it. Some scales. He told me it was in good condition even though it sounds a bit soft and mellow possibly due to the strings used for a while. He pleased me telling that this instrument was superior to the other ordinary ones. I told him when I bought this instrument made by a luthier in Italy, I thought I should deliver it to some cellist in the next generation as a heritage, even though it might sound a bit exaggerated. It has survived in the mess at my office in the big earthquake 5 years ago. I would bring it to him and ask him to check it regularly.

This is his portrait taken at this visit. I have brought some of fresh vegetables cropped in the morning. That was in the vinyl bag beside him. 

He told me he was at the crossroads in his life. Lately, he has been wondering if he should extend his business having a disciple or a partner. He is already 37 years old with 2 children. But he was not in a hurry at all. As a luthier, as he said, he was still learning a lot in his work. Maybe, he would abide his time. The work of making instruments requires much study and experience. He could go on working for decades from now. He seems to let himself go with the flow of time in a good sense. That may be why I felt time was flowing slowly when I entered his office.