Abstract
PurposeSentence comprehension deficits are common following a left hemisphere stroke and have primarily been investigated under optimal listening conditions. However, ample work in neurotypical controls indicates that background noise affects sentence comprehension and the cognitive resources it engages. The purpose of this study was to examine how background noise affects sentence comprehension poststroke using both energetic and informational maskers. We further sought to identify whether sentence comprehension in noise abilities are related to poststroke cognitive abilities, specifically working memory and/or attentional control.MethodTwenty persons with chronic left hemisphere stroke completed a sentence–picture matching task where they listened to sentences presented in three types of maskers: multispeakers, broadband noise, and silence (control condition). Working memory, attentional control, and hearing thresholds were also assessed.ResultsA repeated-measures analysis of variance identified participants to have the greatest difficulty with the multispeakers condition, followed by broadband noise and then silence. Regression analyses, after controlling for age and hearing ability, identified working memory as a significant predictor of listening engagement (i.e., mean reaction time) in broadband noise and multispeakers and attentional control as a significant predictor of informational masking effects (computed as a reaction time difference score where broadband noise is subtracted from multispeakers).ConclusionsThe results from this study indicate that background noise impacts sentence comprehension abilities poststroke and that these difficulties may arise due to deficits in the cognitive resources supporting sentence comprehension and not other factors such as age or hearing. These findings also highlight a relationship between working memory abilities and sentence comprehension in background noise. We further suggest that attentional control abilities contribute to sentence comprehension by supporting the additional demands associated with informational masking.Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.14984511
Highlights
Sentence comprehension deficits are common following a left perisylvian stroke
Research linking cognition and sentence comprehension deficits post left hemisphere stroke has primarily focused on sentences presented in optimal listening conditions, despite everyday conversations often occurring in noisy environments
The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship between working memory and attentional control and comprehending sentences in noisy listening conditions in persons with stroke (PWS)
Summary
Sentence comprehension deficits are common following a left perisylvian stroke. This work has historically focused on differences in comprehending simple and complex sentence structures (e.g., Dronkers et al, 2004; Rogalsky et al, 2018; Thothathiri et al, 2012) and largely concludes that sentence comprehension deficits for complex sentence structures arise following a left hemisphere stroke.
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