Accuracy monitoring and task demand evaluation in aphasia

This study investigated possible underlying sources of resource allocation deficits in aphasia. The ability to rate one's own accuracy, as well as to evaluate task difficulty, were examined in aphasic individuals and normal, control subjects as they performed a lexical decision listening task alone and in competition with two distracter tasks. The aphasic subjects were as precise as control subjects in monitoring the accuracy of their lexical decisions. Despite greater error rates and slower reaction times, aphasic individuals' perceptions of task difficulty did not differ significantly from those of the control subjects. Therefore, resource allocation deficits in aphasia may reflect inadequate evaluation of task demands rather than poor self-monitoring of accuracy.