TY - JOUR A1 - Arantzeta, Miren A1 - Bastiaanse, Roelien A1 - Burchert, Frank A1 - Wieling, Martijn Benjamin A1 - Martinez-Zabaleta, Maite A1 - Laka, Itziar T1 - Eye-tracking the effect of word order in sentence comprehension in aphasia BT - evidence from Basque, a free word order ergative language JF - Language, cognition and neuroscience N2 - 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. KW - Aphasia KW - comprehension KW - Basque KW - sentence processing KW - eye-tracking Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2017.1344715 SN - 2327-3798 SN - 2327-3801 VL - 32 IS - 10 SP - 1320 EP - 1343 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Groenewold, Rimke A1 - Bastiaanse, Roelien A1 - Nickels, Lyndsey A1 - Wieling, Martijn A1 - Huiskes, Mike T1 - The effects of direct and indirect speech on discourse comprehension in Dutch listeners with and without aphasia JF - Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal N2 - Background: Research on language comprehension in aphasia has primarily focused on comprehension of isolated words and sentences. Even though previous studies have provided insights into comprehension abilities of individuals with aphasia at the word and grammatical level, our understanding of the nature and extent of their language comprehension (dis)abilities is not yet complete. In contrast to the highly restricted semantic and syntactic interpretation of sentences, discourse comprehension requires additional pragmatic and non-linguistic skills.Aims: The purpose of this study was to assess language comprehension in individuals with and without aphasia at the discourse level. In particular, it addressed the question of whether the use of direct speech, compared to indirect speech, affects comprehension of narrative discourse in Dutch aphasic and non-brain-damaged (NBD) listeners.Methods & Procedures: The Direct Speech Comprehension (DISCO) test was developed to examine the effects of manipulating direct vs. indirect speech on discourse comprehension. Twenty-three individuals with aphasia and 20 NBD participants were presented with spoken narratives that contained either direct or indirect speech reports. The narratives were presented audio-visually on an iPad, and comprehension was assessed with yes/no questions.Outcomes & Results: The performance of the participants with aphasia was significantly poorer than that of the NBD participants. Moreover, a main effect for condition type was found, indicating that narratives with direct speech reports were better understood than narratives with indirect speech reports by listeners with and without aphasia. There was no interaction between group and condition type indicating that this main effect held for both the aphasic and the NBD listeners. However, for the participants with aphasia, there was an interaction between condition and Token Test error score indicating that the positive effect of direct speech constructions diminishes for individuals with poorer comprehension.Conclusions: Direct speech constructions facilitate language comprehension in listeners with and without aphasia. One explanation for this finding is the occurrence of additional layers of communication, such as intonation and facial expression, often accompanying direct speech constructions. An alternative account is the degree of grammatical complexity: In Dutch, the syntactic construction of indirect speech requires embedding, whereas in direct speech the introductory sentence and the quote are both main clauses. The finding that the beneficial effect of direct speech on language comprehension diminishes for individuals with severe aphasia may indicate that the DISCO is too difficult for them to reveal an effect of a subtle manipulation such as that of condition type. KW - Aphasia KW - Discourse comprehension KW - Direct speech KW - Indirect speech Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/02687038.2014.902916 SN - 0268-7038 SN - 1464-5041 VL - 28 IS - 7 SP - 862 EP - 884 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bos, Laura S. A1 - Dragoy, Olga V. A1 - Avrutin, S. A1 - Iskra, E. A1 - Bastiaanse, Roelien T1 - Understanding discourse-linked elements in aphasia: A threefold study in Russian JF - Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience N2 - Background: Agrammatic speakers have problems with grammatical encoding and decoding. However, not all syntactic processes are equally problematic: present time reference, who questions, and reflexives can be processed by narrow syntax alone and are relatively spared compared to past time reference, which questions, and personal pronouns, respectively. The latter need additional access to discourse and information structures to link to their referent outside the clause (Avrutin, 2006). Linguistic processing that requires discourse-linking is difficult for agrammatic individuals: verb morphology with reference to the past is more difficult than with reference to the present (Bastiaanse et al., 2011). The same holds for which questions compared to who questions and for pronouns compared to reflexives (Avrutin, 2006). These results have been reported independently for different populations in different languages. The current study, for the first time, tested all conditions within the same population. Aims: We had two aims with the current study. First, we wanted to investigate whether discourse-linking is the common denominator of the deficits in time reference, wh questions, and object pronouns. Second, we aimed to compare the comprehension of discourse-linked elements in people with agrammatic and fluent aphasia. Methods and procedures: Three sentence-picture-matching tasks were administered to 10 agrammatic, 10 fluent aphasic, and 10 non-brain-damaged Russian speakers (NBDs): (1) the Test for Assessing Reference of Time (TART) for present imperfective (reference to present) and past perfective (reference to past), (2) the Wh Extraction Assessment Tool (WHEAT) for which and who subject questions, and (3) the Reflexive-Pronoun Test (RePro) for reflexive and pronominal reference. Outcomes and results: NBDs scored at ceiling and significantly higher than the aphasic participants. We found an overall effect of discourse-linking in the TART and WHEAT for the agrammatic speakers, and in all three tests for the fluent speakers. Scores on the RePro were at ceiling. Conclusions: The results are in line with the prediction that problems that individuals with agrammatic and fluent aphasia experience when comprehending sentences that contain verbs with past time reference, which question words and pronouns are caused by the fact that these elements involve discourse linking. The effect is not specific to agrammatism, although it may result from different underlying disorders in agrammatic and fluent aphasia. KW - Aphasia KW - Sentence comprehension KW - Discourse-linking KW - Tense KW - Time reference KW - wh Questions KW - Pronouns Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.02.017 SN - 0028-3932 SN - 1873-3514 VL - 57 SP - 20 EP - 28 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bos, Laura S. A1 - Hanne, Sandra A1 - Wartenburger, Isabell A1 - Bastiaanse, Roelien T1 - Losing track of time? Processing of time reference inflection in agrammatic and healthy speakers of German JF - Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience N2 - Background: Individuals with agrammatic aphasia (IWAs) have problems with grammatical decoding of tense inflection. However, these difficulties depend on the time frame that the tense refers to. Verb morphology with reference to the past is more difficult than with reference to the non-past, because a link needs to be made to the past event in discourse, as captured in the PAst Discourse Linking Hypothesis (PADILIH; Bastiaanse, R., Bamyaci, E., Hsu, C., Lee, J., Yarbay Duman, T., Thompson, C. K., 2011. Time reference in agrammatic aphasia: A cross-linguistic study. J. Neurolinguist. 24, 652-673). With respect to reference to the (non-discourse-linked) future, data so far indicate that IWAs experience less difficulties as compared to past time reference (Bastiaanse, R., Bamyaci, E., Hsu, C., Lee, J., Yarbay Duman, T., Thompson, C. K., 2011. Time reference in agrammatic aphasia: A cross-linguistic study. J. Neurolinguist. 24, 652-673), supporting the assumptions of the PADILIH. Previous online studies of time reference in aphasia used methods such as reaction times analysis (e.g., Faroqi-Shah, Y., Dickey, M. W., 2009. On-line processing of tense and temporality in agrammatic aphasia. Brain Lang. 108, 97-111). So far, no such study used eye-tracking, even though this technique can bring additional insights (Burchert, F., Hanne, S., Vasishth, S., 2013. Sentence comprehension disorders in aphasia: the concept of chance performance revisited. Aphasiology 27, 112-125, doi:10.1080/02687038.2012.730603). Aims: This study investigated (1) whether processing of future and past time reference inflection differs between non-brain-damaged individuals (NBDs) and IWAs, and (2) underlying mechanisms of time reference comprehension failure by IWAs. Results and discussion: NBDs scored at ceiling and significantly higher than the IWAs. IWAs had below-ceiling performance on the future condition, and both participant groups were faster to respond to the past than to the future condition. These differences are attributed to a pre-existing preference to look at a past picture, which has to be overcome. Eye movement patterns suggest that both groups interpret future time reference similarly, while IWAs show a delay relative to NBDs in interpreting past time reference inflection. The eye tracking results support the PADILIH, because processing reference to the past in discourse syntax requires additional resources and thus, is problematic and delayed for people with aphasia. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - Visual-world paradigm KW - Spoken language comprehension KW - Time reference KW - Morphology KW - Agrammatism KW - Eye-tracking KW - Aphasia KW - Discourse linking Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.10.026 SN - 0028-3932 SN - 1873-3514 VL - 65 SP - 180 EP - 190 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER -