The canonicity of word order was a better predictor for syntactic priming and working memory measures than the active-passive syntactic manipulation in aphasia: Evidence from a verb-final language

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event The canonicity of word order was a better predictor for syntactic priming and working memory measures than the active-passive syntactic manipulation in aphasia: Evidence from a verb-final language Bora Eom1, Jee Eun Sung1*, Soo Eun Lee1, Chaewon Park1, Seung He Paik1, Hanjae Lee1, Yena Kim1 and Yoon Ah Kim1 1 Ewha Womans University, Dept. of Communication Disorders, South Korea Introduction People with aphasia demonstrated difficulties in formulating sentences (Rochon et al., 2000; Saffran et al., 1989; Thompson et al., 1993). It is critical to examine linguistic factors associated with sentence production difficulties in aphasia. The current study manipulated the canonicity of word order and syntactic structure in a verb final language. In Korean, the noun phrases can be scrambled as far as the verbs are retained in a sentence-final position. The current study investigated whether there are differential effects of the word order manipulation on sentence production when the syntactic structures (active vs. passive) varied. Passive structures are more complex to produce than active sentences in Korean due to the change of the thematic roles in noun phrases and morphological inflections in verbs. However, it is not known whether the word order effects and syntactic manipulations have differential effects on sentence production in Korean individuals with aphasia. Furthermore, the current study examined the syntactic features associated with working memory measures in aphasia. Methods A total of 15 Korean-monolingual individuals with aphasia participated in this study, ranging in age from 17 to 68 (mean= 51.87, SD=13.67). They demonstrated aphasic symptoms following a stroke. All were administered the Korean Version of Western Aphasia Battery (K-WAB) (Kim & Na, 2001). They were classified as Anomic(n=7), Broca(n=3), Conduction(n=3) and Wernicke’s(n=2) aphasia. Aphasia quotients (AQs) ranged from 38 to 93.4 (mean = 75.58, SD=16.26). The syntactic-priming task (Sung, 2015) contained two syntactic structures of active and passive sentences with either canonical or noncanonical word-order. Participants were asked to describe the target picture with semantically reversible arguments after they listened to the prime sentence that the examiner produced. Working memory measures included digit-forward/backward and word-forward/backward, and the composite measure of the four tasks was used as a single index of working memory capacity based on the one-factor solution (75.8%) from the principal component analysis. Results 1. ANOVA analyses Two-way mixed ANOVA (syntactic structure x canonicity) revealed a significant main effect for the canonicity, F(1, 14)=17.5, p<.005 with worse performance on noncanonical than canonical condition. A main effect for syntactic structure was not significant, F(1, 14)=.409, p=.533. The two-way interaction was marginally significant, F(1, 14)=3.865, p=.069 with greater canonicity effects in passive than active sentences (Figure 1). 2. Regression analyses Stepwise regression analyses were performed with working memory index as a dependent measure and each condition as predictors. Active-noncanonical and Passive-noncanonical conditions were the significant factors to account for WM capacity, F(2, 12)=23.906, p<.0001. Discussion The canonicity manipulation seems to have relatively greater impacts on a syntactic priming task than the active-passive syntactic effects in persons with aphasia using a verb-final language. Furthermore, noncanonical conditions turned out to be significant factors to account for working memory capacity. Although Korean is often regarded as a free-word order language, the noncanonical word order seems to place greater burden on sentence production and working memory capacity in Korean-speaking individuals with aphasia. Figure 1 References Kim, H., & Na, D. (2001). Korean version-The Western Aphasia Battery, K-WAB. Seoul: Paradise Welfare Foundation. Rochon, E., Saffran, E. M., Berndt, R. S., & Schwartz, M. F. (2000). Quantitative analysis of aphasic sentence production: Further development and new data. Brain and Language, 72(3), 193-218. Saffran, E. M., Berndt, R. S., & Schwartz, M. F. (1989). The quantitative analysis of agrammatic production: Procedure and data. Brain & language, 37, 440-479. Sung, J. E. (2015). Age-related changes in sentence production abilities and their relation to working-memory capacity: evidence from a verb-final language. PloS one, 10(4), e0119424. Thompson, C. K., Shapiro, L. P., & Roberts, M. M. (1993). Treatment of sentence production deficits in aphasia: A linguistic-specific approach to wh-interrogative training and generalization. Aphasiology, 7, 113-133. Keywords: canonicity, syntactic priming, Syntactic structure, SOV language, Aphasia Conference: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting, Llandudno, United Kingdom, 16 Oct - 18 Oct, 2016. Presentation Type: Poster Sessions Topic: Student Submissions Citation: Eom B, Sung J, Lee S, Park C, Paik S, Lee H, Kim Y and Kim Y (2016). The canonicity of word order was a better predictor for syntactic priming and working memory measures than the active-passive syntactic manipulation in aphasia: Evidence from a verb-final language. Front. Psychol. Conference Abstract: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2016.68.00138 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 2016; Published Online: 15 Aug 2016. * Correspondence: PhD. Jee Eun Sung, Ewha Womans University, Dept. of Communication Disorders, Seoul, South Korea, jeesung@ewha.ac.kr 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 Bora Eom Jee Eun Sung Soo Eun Lee Chaewon Park Seung He Paik Hanjae Lee Yena Kim Yoon Ah Kim Google Bora Eom Jee Eun Sung Soo Eun Lee Chaewon Park Seung He Paik Hanjae Lee Yena Kim Yoon Ah Kim Google Scholar Bora Eom Jee Eun Sung Soo Eun Lee Chaewon Park Seung He Paik Hanjae Lee Yena Kim Yoon Ah Kim PubMed Bora Eom Jee Eun Sung Soo Eun Lee Chaewon Park Seung He Paik Hanjae Lee Yena Kim Yoon Ah Kim 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.