TY - JOUR
T1 - Lexical and Prosodic Effects on Syntactic Ambiguity Resolution in Aphasia
AU - DeDe, Gayle
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments Preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by NIA Grant AG00961, NIDCD grant DC007564, and a research grant from the Dudley Allen Research Fund at Boston University. These experiments were conducted in partial fulfillment of the author’s doctoral dissertation in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences at Boston University. Parts of this work were presented at the 37th Clinical Aphasiology Conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming (2008). Very special thanks are due to Gloria Waters and David Caplan for advice and support throughout this project. I am also grateful to Stephanie Shat-tuck-Hufnagel, Neil Pearlmutter, Janet Nicol, Pagie Beeson, and Edwin Maas for their helpful comments on this project. I also thank John Gould for his help recording the experimental stimuli, and all of the individuals who participated in this research study.
PY - 2012/7
Y1 - 2012/7
N2 - The purpose of this study was to determine whether and when individuals with aphasia and healthy controls use lexical and prosodic information during on-line sentence comprehension. Individuals with aphasia and controls (n = 12 per group) participated in a self-paced listening experiment. The stimuli were early closure sentences, such as "While the parents watched(,) the child sang a song." Both lexical and prosodic cues were manipulated. The cues were biased toward the subject- or object- of the ambiguous noun phrase (the child). Thus, there were two congruous conditions (in which both lexical cues and prosodic cues were consistent) and two incongruous conditions (in which lexical and prosodic cues conflicted). The results showed that the people with aphasia had longer listening times for the ambiguous noun phrase (the child) when the cues were conflicting, rather than consistent. The controls showed effects earlier in the sentence, at the subordinate verb (watched or danced). Both groups showed evidence of reanalysis at the main verb (sang). These effects demonstrate that the aphasic group was sensitive to the lexical and prosodic cues, but used them on a delayed time course relative to the control group.
AB - The purpose of this study was to determine whether and when individuals with aphasia and healthy controls use lexical and prosodic information during on-line sentence comprehension. Individuals with aphasia and controls (n = 12 per group) participated in a self-paced listening experiment. The stimuli were early closure sentences, such as "While the parents watched(,) the child sang a song." Both lexical and prosodic cues were manipulated. The cues were biased toward the subject- or object- of the ambiguous noun phrase (the child). Thus, there were two congruous conditions (in which both lexical cues and prosodic cues were consistent) and two incongruous conditions (in which lexical and prosodic cues conflicted). The results showed that the people with aphasia had longer listening times for the ambiguous noun phrase (the child) when the cues were conflicting, rather than consistent. The controls showed effects earlier in the sentence, at the subordinate verb (watched or danced). Both groups showed evidence of reanalysis at the main verb (sang). These effects demonstrate that the aphasic group was sensitive to the lexical and prosodic cues, but used them on a delayed time course relative to the control group.
KW - Aphasia
KW - On-line sentence processing
KW - Prosody
KW - Syntactic ambiguity resolution
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U2 - 10.1007/s10936-011-9191-1
DO - 10.1007/s10936-011-9191-1
M3 - Article
C2 - 22143353
AN - SCOPUS:84865815499
SN - 0090-6905
VL - 41
SP - 387
EP - 408
JO - Journal of psycholinguistic research
JF - Journal of psycholinguistic research
IS - 5
ER -