Abstract
We investigated whether semantic plausibility and syntactic complexity affect immediate sentence recall in people with latent and anomic aphasia. To date, these factors have not been explored in these types of aphasia. As with previous studies of sentence recall, we measured accuracy of verbatim recall and uniquely real-time speech measures. The results showed that accuracy did not distinguish performance between latent aphasia and neurotypical controls. However, some of the real-time speech measures distinguished performance between people with latent aphasia and neurotypical controls. There was some evidence, though not pervasive, that semantic plausibility and syntactic complexity influenced recall performance. There were no interactions between semantic plausibility and syntactic complexity. The speed of preparation of responses was slower in latent aphasia than controls; it was also slower in anomic aphasia than both latent and control groups. It appears that processing speed as indexed by temporal speech measures may be differentially compromised in latent and anomic aphasia. However, semantic plausibility and syntactic complexity did not show clear patterns of performance among the groups. Notwithstanding the absence of interactions, we advance an explanation based on conceptual short-term memory as to why semantically implausible sentences are typically more erroneous and possibly also slower in recall.
Highlights
Immediate spoken sentence recall is a simple yet discerning measure of verbal abilities, which engages simultaneously multiple linguistic representations, phonological, semantic and conceptual [1,2,3,4,5].Clinically, it is used in diagnostic aphasia assessments—for example, ComprehensiveAphasia Test [6] and Western Aphasia Battery [7]—as well as in aphasia treatment [8,9].The present exploratory study involved secondary data analyses and examined sentence recall in latent and anomic aphasia
Some authors have subsumed it under anomic aphasia [18,19,20], indirectly acknowledging that language abilities in people with latent aphasia are somewhat mildly impaired
We focus on two linguistic factors, semantic plausibility and syntactic complexity, which have been dominant themes in the sentence processing literature in aphasia, recall and comprehension
Summary
Immediate spoken sentence recall (or sentence recall) is a simple yet discerning measure of verbal abilities (language and short-term memory, STM), which engages simultaneously multiple linguistic representations, phonological, semantic and conceptual [1,2,3,4,5].Clinically, it is used in diagnostic aphasia assessments—for example, ComprehensiveAphasia Test [6] and Western Aphasia Battery [7]—as well as in aphasia treatment [8,9].The present exploratory study involved secondary data analyses and examined sentence recall in latent and anomic aphasia. Temporal speech measures are real-time measures that examine durations of silent and speech segments, affording greater precision, which helps to refine our understanding of the underlying cognitive processes that underpin recall [25,26] Such measures can differentiate people with latent from those with anomic aphasia and neurotypical controls [15,16,27]. We should note that the present study is exploratory and utilized opportunistic, secondary data with a small number of experimental stimuli Despite this insurmountable limitation, which renders our findings provisional, our objective is to broaden the theoretical debate of sentence recall abilities in latent and anomic aphasia and discuss the diagnostic potential of our methods
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