Sentence memory in aphasia

Abstract

A probe paradigm was used to assess memory for the surface structure of sentences in a group of anterior (Broca's) and a group of posterior (Wernicke's) aphasics. Three types of sentences were used: active, passive and center-embedded sentences. Results showed that for both patient groups memory for function words was especially impaired relative to the patient's ability to recover content words. Further, both groups had marked difficulties in remembering center-embedded sentences. A second experiment rules out the possibility that this latter result was due to the extra syntactic complexity of the center-embedded sentences. Results from both experiments were interpreted as indicating that neither anterior nor posterior aphasics have normal surface structure memory representations and that the aphasic's memory span for sentence material may be severely limited.