@article{PreglaLissonHernandezVasishthetal.2021, author = {Pregla, Dorothea and Liss{\´o}n Hern{\´a}ndez, Paula J. and Vasishth, Shravan and Burchert, Frank and Stadie, Nicole}, title = {Variability in sentence comprehension in aphasia in German}, series = {Brain \& language : a journal of the neurobiology of language}, volume = {222}, journal = {Brain \& language : a journal of the neurobiology of language}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {0093-934X}, doi = {10.1016/j.bl.2021.105008}, pages = {20}, year = {2021}, abstract = {An important aspect of aphasia is the observation of behavioral variability between and within individual participants. Our study addresses variability in sentence comprehension in German, by testing 21 individuals with aphasia and a control group and involving (a) several constructions (declarative sentences, relative clauses and control structures with an overt pronoun or PRO), (b) three response tasks (object manipulation, sentence-picture matching with/without self-paced listening), and (c) two test phases (to investigate test-retest performance). With this systematic, large-scale study we gained insights into variability in sentence comprehension. We found that the size of syntactic effects varied both in aphasia and in control participants. Whereas variability in control participants led to systematic changes, variability in individuals with aphasia was unsystematic across test phases or response tasks. The persistent occurrence of canonicity and interference effects across response tasks and test phases, however, shows that the performance is systematically influenced by syntactic complexity.}, language = {en} } @article{CreetMorrisHowardetal.2019, author = {Creet, Ella and Morris, Julie and Howard, David and Nickels, Lyndsey}, title = {Name it again! investigating the effects of repeated naming attempts in aphasia}, series = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, volume = {33}, journal = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, number = {10}, publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {0268-7038}, doi = {10.1080/02687038.2019.1622352}, pages = {1202 -- 1226}, year = {2019}, language = {en} } @article{HameisterNickels2018, author = {Hameister, Inga and Nickels, Lyndsey}, title = {The cat in the tree - using picture descriptions to inform our understanding of conceptualisation in aphasia}, series = {Language, cognition and neuroscience}, volume = {33}, journal = {Language, cognition and neuroscience}, number = {10}, publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {2327-3798}, doi = {10.1080/23273798.2018.1497801}, pages = {1296 -- 1314}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Conceptualisation is the first step of speech production and describes the process by which we map our thoughts onto spoken language. Recent studies suggest that some people with language impairments have conceptualisation deficits manifested by information selection and sequencing difficulties. In this study, we examined conceptualisation in the complex picture descriptions of individuals with and without aphasia. We analysed the number and the order of main concepts (ideas produced by >= 60\% of unimpaired speakers) and non-main concepts (e.g. irrelevant details). Half of the individuals with aphasia showed a reduced number of main concepts that could not be fully accounted for by their language production deficits. Moreover, individuals with aphasia produced both a larger amount of marginally relevant information, as well as having greater variability in the order of main concepts. Both findings provide support for the idea that conceptualisation deficits are a relatively common impairment in people with aphasia.}, language = {en} } @article{ArantzetaWebsterLakaetal.2018, author = {Arantzeta, Miren and Webster, Janet and Laka, Itziar and Martinez-Zabaleta, Maite and Howard, David}, title = {What happens when they think they are right?}, series = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, volume = {32}, journal = {Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal}, number = {12}, publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {0268-7038}, doi = {10.1080/02687038.2017.1423270}, pages = {1418 -- 1444}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Background: Comprehension of non-canonical sentences is frequently characterised by chance level performance in people with aphasia (PWA). Chance level performance has been interpreted as guessing, but online data does not support this rendering. It is still not clear whether the incorrect sentence processing is guided by the compensatory strategies that PWA might employ to overcome linguistic difficulties.Aims: We aim to study to what extent people with non-fluent aphasia are aware of their sentence comprehension deficits.Methods \& Procedures: This study combined offline and online data to investigate the effect of word order and error-awareness on sentence comprehension in a group of PWA and non-brain damaged (NBD) participants. The offline tasks involved auditory sentence picture-matching immediately followed by a confidence rating (CR). Participants were asked to judge the perceived correctness of their previous answer. Online data consisted of eye-tracking.Outcomes \& Results: Replicating previous findings, PWA had significantly worse comprehension of Theme-Agent order compared to Agent-Theme order sentences. Controls showed ceiling level sentence comprehension. CR was a poor predictor of response accuracy in PWA, but moderate-good in NBD. A total of 6.8\% of judgements were classified as guessing by PWA. Post hoc gaze data analysis indicated that CR was a predictor of the fixation pattern during the presentation of the linguistic stimuli.Conclusions: Results suggest that PWA were mostly unaware of their sentence comprehension errors and did not consciously employ strategies to compensate for their difficulties.}, language = {en} } @article{MaetzigVasishthEngelmannetal.2018, author = {M{\"a}tzig, Paul and Vasishth, Shravan and Engelmann, Felix and Caplan, David and Burchert, Frank}, title = {A computational investigation of sources of variability in sentence comprehension difficulty in aphasia}, series = {Topics in cognitive science}, volume = {10}, journal = {Topics in cognitive science}, number = {1}, publisher = {Wiley}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {1756-8757}, doi = {10.1111/tops.12323}, pages = {161 -- 174}, year = {2018}, abstract = {We present a computational evaluation of three hypotheses about sources of deficit in sentence comprehension in aphasia: slowed processing, intermittent deficiency, and resource reduction. The ACT-R based Lewis and Vasishth (2005) model is used to implement these three proposals. Slowed processing is implemented as slowed execution time of parse steps; intermittent deficiency as increased random noise in activation of elements in memory; and resource reduction as reduced spreading activation. As data, we considered subject vs. object relative sentences, presented in a self-paced listening modality to 56 individuals with aphasia (IWA) and 46 matched controls. The participants heard the sentences and carried out a picture verification task to decide on an interpretation of the sentence. These response accuracies are used to identify the best parameters (for each participant) that correspond to the three hypotheses mentioned above. We show that controls have more tightly clustered (less variable) parameter values than IWA; specifically, compared to controls, among IWA there are more individuals with slow parsing times, high noise, and low spreading activation. We find that (a) individual IWA show differential amounts of deficit along the three dimensions of slowed processing, intermittent deficiency, and resource reduction, (b) overall, there is evidence for all three sources of deficit playing a role, and (c) IWA have a more variable range of parameter values than controls. An important implication is that it may be meaningless to talk about sources of deficit with respect to an abstract verage IWA; the focus should be on the individual's differential degrees of deficit along different dimensions, and on understanding the causes of variability in deficit between participants.}, language = {en} } @article{ZakariasSalisWartenburger2018, author = {Zakarias, Lilla and Salis, Christos and Wartenburger, Isabell}, title = {Transfer effects on spoken sentence comprehension and functional communication after working memory training in stroke aphasia}, series = {Journal of neurolinguistics : an international journal for the study of brain function in language behavior and experience}, volume = {48}, journal = {Journal of neurolinguistics : an international journal for the study of brain function in language behavior and experience}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0911-6044}, doi = {10.1016/j.jneuroling.2017.12.002}, pages = {47 -- 63}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Recent treatment protocols have been successful in improving working memory (WM) in individuals with aphasia. However, the evidence to date is small and the extent to which improvements in trained tasks of WM transfer to untrained memory tasks, spoken sentence comprehension, and functional communication is yet poorly understood. To address these issues, we conducted a multiple baseline study with three German-speaking individuals with chronic post stroke aphasia. Participants practised two computerised WM tasks (n-back with pictures and aback with spoken words) four times a week for a month, targeting two WM processes: updating WM representations and resolving interference. All participants showed improvement on at least one measure of spoken sentence comprehension and everyday memory activities. Two of them showed improvement also on measures of WM and functional communication. Our results suggest that WM can be improved through computerised training in chronic aphasia and this can transfer to spoken sentence comprehension and functional communication in some individuals.}, language = {en} } @article{ArantzetaBastiaanseBurchertetal.2017, author = {Arantzeta, Miren and Bastiaanse, Roelien and Burchert, Frank and Wieling, Martijn Benjamin and Martinez-Zabaleta, Maite and Laka, Itziar}, title = {Eye-tracking the effect of word order in sentence comprehension in aphasia}, series = {Language, cognition and neuroscience}, volume = {32}, journal = {Language, cognition and neuroscience}, number = {10}, publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {2327-3798}, doi = {10.1080/23273798.2017.1344715}, pages = {1320 -- 1343}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Agrammatic speakers of languages with overt grammatical case show impaired use of the morphological cues to establish theta-role relations in sentences presented in non-canonical word orders. We analysed the effect of word order on the sentence comprehension of aphasic speakers of Basque, an ergative, free word order and head-final (SOV) language. Ergative languages such as Basque establish a one-to-one mapping of the thematic role and the case marker. We collected behavioural and gaze-fixation data while agrammatic speakers performed a picture-matching task with auditorily presented sentences with different word orders. We found that people with aphasia (PWA) had difficulties in assigning theta-roles in Theme-Agent order. This result is in line with processing accounts. Contrary to previous findings, our data do not suggest a systematic delay in the integration of morphological information in the PWA group, but strong reliance on the ergative case morphology and difficulties assigning thematic roles into the determiner phrases.}, language = {en} } @article{FyndanisLindVarlokostaetal.2017, author = {Fyndanis, Valantis and Lind, Marianne and Varlokosta, Spyridoula and Kambanaros, Maria and Soroli, Efstathia and Ceder, Klaudia and Grohmann, Kleanthes K. and Rofes, Adri{\`a} and Simonsen, Hanne Gram and Bjekić, Jovana and Gavarr{\´o}, Anna and Kraljević, Jelena Kuvač and Mart{\´i}nez-Ferreiro, Silvia and Munarriz, Amaia and Pourquie, Marie and Vuksanović, Jasmina and Zakari{\´a}s, Lilla and Howard, David}, title = {Cross-linguistic adaptations of The Comprehensive Aphasia Test}, series = {Clinical linguistics \& phonetics}, volume = {31}, journal = {Clinical linguistics \& phonetics}, number = {7-9}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Philadelphia}, issn = {0269-9206}, doi = {10.1080/02699206.2017.1310299}, pages = {697 -- 710}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Comparative research on aphasia and aphasia rehabilitation is challenged by the lack of comparable assessment tools across different languages. In English, a large array of tools is available, while in most other languages, the selection is more limited. Importantly, assessment tools are often simple translations and do not take into consideration specific linguistic and psycholinguistic parameters of the target languages. As a first step in meeting the needs for comparable assessment tools, the Comprehensive Aphasia Test is currently being adapted into a number of languages spoken in Europe. In this article, some key challenges encountered in the adaptation process and the solutions to ensure that the resulting assessment tools are linguistically and culturally equivalent, are proposed. Specifically, we focus on challenges and solutions related to the use of imageability, frequency, word length, spelling-to-sound regularity and sentence length and complexity as underlying properties in the selection of the testing material.}, language = {en} } @article{AdeltStadieLassottaetal.2017, author = {Adelt, Anne and Stadie, Nicole and Lassotta, Romy and Adani, Flavia and Burchert, Frank}, title = {Feature dissimilarities in the processing of German relative clauses in aphasia}, series = {Journal of neurolinguistics : an international journal for the study of brain function in language behavior and experience}, volume = {44}, journal = {Journal of neurolinguistics : an international journal for the study of brain function in language behavior and experience}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0911-6044}, doi = {10.1016/j.jneuroling.2017.01.002}, pages = {17 -- 37}, year = {2017}, abstract = {The cross-linguistic finding of greater demands in processing object relatives as compared to subject relatives in individuals with aphasia and non-brain-damaged speakers has been explained within the Relativized Minimality approach. Based on this account, the asymmetry is attributed to an element intervening between the moved element and its extraction site in object relatives, but not in subject relatives. Moreover, it has been proposed that processing of object relatives is facilitated if the intervening and the moved elements differ in their internal feature structure. The present study investigates these predictions in German-speaking individuals with aphasia and a group of control participants by combining the visual world eye-tracking methodology with an auditory referent identification task. Our results provide support for the Relativized Minimality approach. Particularly, the degree of featural distinctness was shown to modulate the occurrence of the effects in aphasia. We claim that, due to reduced processing capacities, individuals with aphasia need a higher degree of featural dissimilarity to distinguish the moved from the intervening element in object relatives to overcome their syntactic deficit. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.}, language = {en} } @article{PatilHanneBurchertetal.2016, author = {Patil, Umesh and Hanne, Sandra and Burchert, Frank and De Bleser, Ria and Vasishth, Shravan}, title = {A Computational Evaluation of Sentence Processing Deficits in Aphasia}, series = {Cognitive science : a multidisciplinary journal of anthropology, artificial intelligence, education, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology ; journal of the Cognitive Science Society}, volume = {40}, journal = {Cognitive science : a multidisciplinary journal of anthropology, artificial intelligence, education, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, psychology ; journal of the Cognitive Science Society}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {0364-0213}, doi = {10.1111/cogs.12250}, pages = {5 -- 50}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Individuals with agrammatic Broca's aphasia experience difficulty when processing reversible non-canonical sentences. Different accounts have been proposed to explain this phenomenon. The Trace Deletion account (Grodzinsky, 1995, 2000, 2006) attributes this deficit to an impairment in syntactic representations, whereas others (e.g., Caplan, Waters, Dede, Michaud, \& Reddy, 2007; Haarmann, Just, \& Carpenter, 1997) propose that the underlying structural representations are unimpaired, but sentence comprehension is affected by processing deficits, such as slow lexical activation, reduction in memory resources, slowed processing and/or intermittent deficiency, among others. We test the claims of two processing accounts, slowed processing and intermittent deficiency, and two versions of the Trace Deletion Hypothesis (TDH), in a computational framework for sentence processing (Lewis \& Vasishth, 2005) implemented in ACT-R (Anderson, Byrne, Douglass, Lebiere, \& Qin, 2004). The assumption of slowed processing is operationalized as slow procedural memory, so that each processing action is performed slower than normal, and intermittent deficiency as extra noise in the procedural memory, so that the parsing steps are more noisy than normal. We operationalize the TDH as an absence of trace information in the parse tree. To test the predictions of the models implementing these theories, we use the data from a German sentence—picture matching study reported in Hanne, Sekerina, Vasishth, Burchert, and De Bleser (2011). The data consist of offline (sentence-picture matching accuracies and response times) and online (eye fixation proportions) measures. From among the models considered, the model assuming that both slowed processing and intermittent deficiency are present emerges as the best model of sentence processing difficulty in aphasia. The modeling of individual differences suggests that, if we assume that patients have both slowed processing and intermittent deficiency, they have them in differing degrees.}, language = {en} }