Online Sentence Comprehension in PPA: Verb-Based Integration and Prediction

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Online Sentence Comprehension in PPA: Verb-Based Integration and Prediction Jennifer E. Mack1*, Stephanie Gutierrez1, M.-Marsel Mesulam1 and Cynthia Thompson1 1 Northwestern University, United States Introduction. Impaired language comprehension is frequently observed in primary progressive aphasia (PPA). Word comprehension deficits are characteristic of the semantic variant (PPA-S) whereas sentence comprehension deficits are more prevalent in the agrammatic (PPA-G) and logopenic (PPA-L) variants (Amici et al., 2007; Gorno-Tempini et al., 2011; Thompson et al., 2013). Word and sentence comprehension deficits have also been shown to have distinct neural substrates in PPA (Mesulam, Thompson, Weintraub, & Rogalski, in press). However, little is known about the relationship between word and sentence comprehension processes in PPA, specifically how words are accessed, combined, and used to predict upcoming elements within a sentence. A previous study demonstrated that listeners with stroke-induced agrammatic aphasia rapidly access verb meanings and use them to semantically integrate verb-arguments; however, they show deficits in using verb meanings predictively (Mack, Ji, & Thompson, 2013). The present study tested whether listeners with PPA are able to access verb meanings and to use this information to integrate and predict verb-arguments. Methods. Fifteen adults with PPA (8 with PPA-G, 3 with PPA-L, and 4 with PPA-S) and ten age-matched controls participated in two eyetracking experiments. In both experiments, participants heard sentences with restrictive verbs that were semantically compatible with only one object in a four-picture visual array (e.g., eat when the array included a cake and three non-edible objects) and unrestrictive verbs (e.g., move) that were compatible with all four objects. The verb-based integration experiment tested access to verb meaning and its effects on integration of the direct object (e.g., Susan will eat/move the cake); the verb-based prediction experiment examined prediction of the direct object (e.g., Susan will eat/move the …). The dependent variable was the rate of fixations on the target picture (e.g., the cake) in the first 500 ms after the offset of the verb. Logistic regression was used to compare the rate of target fixations between PPA and controls and to test for differences between PPA subtypes. Results. In the verb-based integration experiment (Fig. 1a), PPA listeners as well as controls showed rapid access to verb meaning, making more target fixations in the restrictive than unrestrictive conditions in the first 500 ms after verb offset. No significant differences were found between participant groups. In the verb-based prediction experiment (Fig. 1b), control listeners exhibited a greater difference between the restrictive and unrestrictive conditions compared to PPA listeners. In both experiments, no significant differences were found between PPA subtypes. Conclusion. The results of this study suggest that access to verb meaning is relatively preserved in PPA and can facilitate integration of verb-arguments. However, prediction of verb-arguments is impaired. These findings are in line with stroke-induced agrammatic aphasia, in which prediction is markedly impaired (Mack et al., 2013). The similar pattern of results across PPA subtypes should be interpreted cautiously due to small sample sizes. However, these findings suggest that – despite well-established differences in word and sentence comprehension impairments – there may also be shared deficits across PPA subtypes that affect the ability to use lexical information predictively during sentence comprehension. Figure 1 References Amici, S., Brambati, S. M., Wilkins, D. P., Ogar, J., Dronkers, N. L., Miller, B. L., & Gorno-Tempini, M. L. (2007). Anatomical correlates of sentence comprehension and verbal working memory in neurodegenerative disease. J Neurosci, 27(23), 6282-6290. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1331-07.2007 Gorno-Tempini, M. L., Hillis, A. E., Weintraub, S., Kertesz, A., Mendez, M., Cappa, S. F., . . . Grossman, M. (2011). Classification of primary progressive aphasia and its variants. Neurology, 76(11), 1006-1014. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0b013e31821103e6 Mack, J. E., Ji, W., & Thompson, C. K. (2013). Effects of verb meaning on lexical integration in agrammatic aphasia: Evidence from eyetracking. J Neurolinguistics, 26(6), 619-636. doi: 10.1016/j.jneuroling.2013.04.002 Mesulam, M. M., Thompson, C. K., Weintraub, S., & Rogalski, E. J. (in press). The Wernicke conundrum and the anatomy of language comprehension in primary progressive aphasia. Brain. Thompson, C. K., Meltzer-Asscher, A., Cho, S., Lee, J., Wieneke, C., Weintraub, S., & Mesulam, M. M. (2013). Syntactic and morphosyntactic processing in stroke-induced and primary progressive aphasia. Behav Neurol, 26(1-2), 35-54. doi: 10.3233/BEN-2012-110220 Keywords: primary progressive aphasia, eyetracking, Linguistic prediction, Verb processing, sentence comprehension Conference: Academy of Aphasia 53rd Annual Meeting, Tucson, United States, 18 Oct - 20 Oct, 2015. Presentation Type: platform paper Topic: Not student first author Citation: Mack JE, Gutierrez S, Mesulam M and Thompson C (2015). Online Sentence Comprehension in PPA: Verb-Based Integration and Prediction. Front. Psychol. Conference Abstract: Academy of Aphasia 53rd Annual Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2015.65.00026 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 01 May 2015; Published Online: 24 Sep 2015. * Correspondence: Dr. Jennifer E Mack, Northwestern University, Evanston, United States, jemack@umass.edu Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Jennifer E Mack Stephanie Gutierrez M.-Marsel Mesulam Cynthia Thompson Google Jennifer E Mack Stephanie Gutierrez M.-Marsel Mesulam Cynthia Thompson Google Scholar Jennifer E Mack Stephanie Gutierrez M.-Marsel Mesulam Cynthia Thompson PubMed Jennifer E Mack Stephanie Gutierrez M.-Marsel Mesulam Cynthia Thompson Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.