Verbal Errors Research Articles

Identifying the Pronunciation of Irregularly Spelled Words: Relation to Verbal IQ

The relation between ability to identify the pronunciation of irregularly spelled words (from the AMNART) and performance on six verbal subtests of the WAIS-R was investigated in 34 non-brain-damaged adults. A correlation of r = .74 emerged between Verbal IQ and pronunciation identification errors. However, results of a multiple regression analysis showed that task order (WAIS-R, pronunciation task) contributed significantly to the variability in pronunciation identification scores beyond what was already accounted for by education. When the relation between task order and Verbal IQ and task order and pronunciation identification errors was removed, the resulting partial correlation was r = .68 between Verbal IQ and pronunciation identification errors.

Phonological and Perceptual Components of Short-Term Memory for Odors

Just as a written word can be encoded and retained in memory verbally or visually, an odor might be retained as a verbal description or perceptual (olfactory) code. However, one view holds that olfactory memory in the short term does not exist as a separate perceptual code. This was examined in an experiment in which memory errors could be seen as deriving from the substitution of similar verbal or olfactory codes. The odorants presented for recall were divided into three groups: base odorants (which might be replaced in memory by similar verbal or olfactory representations), verbal foils (stimuli dissimilar to the base stimuli in odor but similar in name), and odor foils (the reverse). The substitution errors made in attempting to recall test odorants were classified as verbal or olfactory. A substantial proportion of the errors were olfactory, but verbal errors also occurred. These results support the presence of short-term perceptual olfactory memory rather than simply verbal encoding of olfactory perceptions.

Grammatical deficits in German and English: a crosslinguistic study of children with specific language impairment

Children with specific language impairment acquiring German and English were compared in terms of their use of articles, third person singular verb inflections, and copula forms. The German- speaking children showed higher degrees of appropriate use of third singular inflections and copula forms, but not articles. Verb errors in the form of bare stems outnumbered other types of errors even in the data for German. Of the four accounts of grammatical deficits in specific language impairment considered, one based on the morphological richness of the target language appears most consistent with the findings.

Grammatical deficits in German and English: a crosslinguistic study of children with specific language impairment

Children with specific language impairment acquiring German and English were compared in terms of their use of articles, third person singular verb inflections, and copula forms. The German- speaking children showed higher degrees of appropriate use of third singular inflections and copula forms, but not articles. Verb errors in the form of bare stems outnumbered other types of errors even in the data for German. Of the four accounts of grammatical deficits in specific language impairment considered, one based on the morphological richness of the target language appears most consistent with the findings.

Picture Confrontation Oral Naming: Performance Differences between Aphasics and Normals

Oral confrontation naming was compared in 108 normal subjects controlled for education, age, and gender and in 18 aphasic patients for the same set of 115 pictures. Demographic variables influenced both normals' and aphasics' performance. However, the nature of aphasics' misnamings on the one hand and the differential effects of characteristics of pictures and words on normals' and aphasics' responses on the other indicated specific deficits in patients. The classical hypothesis that aphasics' misnamings and the production of word associations by normals should rely on similar mechanisms (Rinnert & Whitaker, 1973) is questioned. Nondominant responses observed in normals accounted for a larger proportion of verbal errors than associates to target words.

Spatial alexia.

Twenty-one patients with right hemisphere damage were studied (11 men, 10 women; average age = 41.33; range = 19-65). Patients were divided in two groups: pre-Rolandic (six patients) and retro-Rolandic (15 patients) right hemisphere damage. A special reading test was given to each patient. The observed errors included: literal errors (substitutions, additions, and omissions of letters), substitutions of syllables and pseudowords for meaningful words, left hemispatial neglect, confabulation, splitting of words, verbal errors (substitutions, additions, and omission of words), grouping of letters belonging to two different words, misuse of punctuation marks, and errors in following lines. It was proposed that spatial alexia is characterized by: (1) some difficulties in the recognition of the spatial orientation in letters; (2) left hemispatial neglect; (3) tendency to "complete" the sense of words and sentences; (4) inability to follow lines when reading texts, and sequentially explore the spatial distribution of the written material; and (5) grouping and fragmentation of words, most likely as a consequence of the inability to interpret the relative value of spaces between letters correctly.

GAPS in the verb lexicons of children with specific language impairment

This is a study of the verb lexicons of three preschool boys with specific language impairment. The database was a corpus of 5486 spontaneous utterances collected over a 3-month period. The children relied heavily on a small set of General All-Purpose (GAP) verbs to fill the verb functions. Their overall verb error rate was very low (2% of their utterances). In general, their verb usage conformed to expected rules of form class assignment and argument structure. Their occasional substitution errors suggest semantic mismarkings and on-line problems of stem retrieval. Overall, the picture is of localized verb learning, at an early stage of mastery, supplemented by heavy use of the GAP verbs.

Grammatical problems in school-age children with specific language impairment

Two claims as to the characterization of specific language impairment (SLI) are tested in the free conversation of groups of language impaired 7–10-year-olds (LI), and 3-, 5- and 7-year-old normally developing (LN) children. The first claim is that SLI is essentially an impairment of morpho-syntax affecting ‘feature-related’ elements, and the second is that it will not be characterized by errors in verbs' argument structures. Both claims are refuted: no qualitative difference was found between groups on feature-related error production. Both groups displayed argument structure errors, but there is evidence that SLI subjects produce a greater frequency and range of these. Some methodological problems are discussed relating to the identification of feature-related errors and the norms which this identification assumes.

Varieties of errors produced by aphasic patients in phonemic cueing

Abstract This study investigated the types of verbal errors produced by aphasic patients when phonemic cueing was administered. Subjects consisted of 40 aphasic patients-10 each of Broca's, conduction, Wernicke's and anomic aphasics. Phonemic cueing was employed following failure to name on confrontation. Prior to phonemic cueing the most frequent naming errors were related words in Broca's aphasics, multiple responses and extended circumlocutions in Wernicke's aphasics, related words and multiple responses in conduction aphasics and related words in anomic aphasics. These errors predominated prior to correct and incorrect response to cueing. A separate analysis examined naming errors surrounding unsuccessful cueing response. In these instances the prevalence of related words and inadequate responses prior to cueing shifted to a significantly greater proportion of phonemic errors, semantic-phonemic errors, multiple responses and neologisms following cueing. These patterns of performance suggest that phone...

An investigation of naming errors following semantic and phonemic cueing

This study investigated the types of verbal errors produced by aphasic patients following phonemic and semantic cueing. Twenty-eight aphasic patients—10 Broca's, 10 Wernicke's and 8 conduction aphasics—served as subjects. Semantic and phonemic cues were administered on object and action confrontation-naming tasks. When subjects did not respond correctly to phonemic cueing, a significantly greater number of phonemic errors were produced, with a concurrent decline in related words and extended circumlocutions. When subjects failed to respond to semantic cueing on the action task, there was an increase in a number of error categories.

Can children use a verb without exposure to its argument structure?

We hypothesize that canonical sentence schemas (e.g. Agent-verb-Patient) can sometimes assign argument structure to verbs. In particular, they provide a default argument structure early in learning when a verb's lexical entry may record the nature of the action but lack a specific argument structure. To test the theory and its application to causative verb errors (e.g. stay it there), novel action verbs were modelled, some as causative, some as intransitive, and some unmarked for transitivity. Spontaneous usage was recorded, along with responses to agent-questions ('What is the [Agent] doing?') and patient-questions ('What is the [Patient] doing?'). Comparable data were obtained for familiar English verbs, some of fixed and some of optional transitivity. Subjects were willing to use all novel verbs both transitively and intransitively, although adults respected assigned transitivity more than children. All subjects largely respected the transitivity of familiar verbs. The discourse pressure of the agent- and patient-questions greatly affected observed transitivity. No evidence was found for the intransitive-to-causative derivational process postulated by Bowerman. We propose that the kind of causativity error observed by Bowerman is due to assignment of argument structure from canonical sentence schemas, especially under pressure of a need to make a sentence with a particular argument (Agent or Patient) as subject. The theory has the advantage of explaining errors without postulating the acquisition of erroneous lexical entries that have to be unlearned, and it can be extended to other kinds of errors in the choice and placement of arguments.

Error recognition ability and the retention of rapid timing movements

Subjects attempted to reproduce 150 msec movement times under the guidance of verbal knowledge of results (KR) before transferring to a post-KR phase. Whether subjects were required to give verbal error estimates or not during acquisition, they all demonstrated post-KR retention. The analyses of the KR-withdrawal phase revealed that there was no tendency for the actual errors committed on one trial to be appropriately corrected on the following trial. This finding does not support the popular viewpoint that post-KR retention may be produced by an internal error recognition system. It was also learned that the ability to assign verbal labels to committed errors will not develop unless procedurally encouraged (optional component of error recognition system) and that this ability, when present, does not contribute to post-KR retention.

Effects of Prior Training and Verbal Errors on Students' Performance in Job Interviews

The authors examined 13 errors commonly made by students in hiring interviews and the frequency of occurrence of these errors. The implications for interview training programs are discussed.

Effect of Visual and Verbal Post-Response Errors on Learning a Simple Discrete Task

Visual and verbal post-response errors were manipulated to determine if acquisition of a motor skill (linear positioning) varied. Three 2 (types of error information) × 4 (trial blocks) factorials were used to analyze data specific to absolute, constant, and variable errors in movement accuracy. Both groups given information on errors significantly reduced movement errors over trial blocks. A significant interaction of absolute and variable errors favored the verbal presentation only on the first trial block.

The effects of temporal and semantic conditions on the occurrence of the error response of perseveration in adult aphasics.

This study sought to determine whether the incidence of perseveration in the responses of adult aphasics could be affected by altering stimulus factors such as semantic difficulty and the rate of presentation of stimuli. Thirty-one aphasic men supplied 1-word responses within three randomly arranged language tasks: sentence completion, picture naming, and word reading. Within each task subjects received stimuli from two 20-word lists of words contrasted for their frequency of occurrence in the language. Each list was presented once with 1-sec intervals between subjects' responses and subsequent stimuli, and once with 10-sec intervals. Results indicated that when semantic difficulty as measured by the frequency of occurrence of the single-word responses was reduced, the mean number of perseverations decreased significantly. When time intervals were increased from 1 to 10 seconds, perseverations decreased significantly. Sentence completion and picture naming elicited significantly more perseverations than word reading. Perseveration and other verbal errors were similarly affected by the variable of semantic difficulty, but only perseverative errors were significantly reduced when time intervals were increased. Word length, presentation order of tasks and conditions, and time postonset of aphasia appeared to have little relationship to perseveration.

Relationships between WAIS Verbal versus Performance Decrements and Bender-Gestalt Errors

Two groups of 42 cases each were matched on age, sex, and WAIS Full Scale IQ. They differed, however, in discrepancies between Verbal IQ and Performance IQ. One group had Verbal IQs which were average or better and were at least 20 points higher than the Performance IQs; conversely, the other group had Performance IQs which were average or better and at least 20 points higher than their Verbal IQs. The group with high Verbal IQs achieved significantly higher (poorer) Pascal-Suttell Bender-Gestalt scores than the group with high Performance IQs. It was also noticed that the latter subjects were more likely to have dropped out of high school and to have spent some time in prison.

Facilitation of Verb Recognition by MR Subjects through Syntactic Cuing

It has been our experience in using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test that an inordinate number of verbs are missed by mentally retarded individuals. This study attempts to determine whether verb errors were due to a lack of word comprehension or a failure to understand what was being requested by the morphological-syntactic form of the stimulus. Twenty-eight subjects residing in a state facility for the mentally retarded were given a standard version and a modified version of the PPVT. On the modified version of the test, the stimulus "verbing" was altered to incorporate a syntactic helper, forming the stimulus "somebody verbing." As a result, there was a mean reduction of verb error by almost 50%.

An Analysis of French Verb Errors Made by Second Language Learners in a Bilingual Program

The data presented in this paper were gathered using a French cloze test in the context of a longitudinal evaluation of a number of French immersion programs in Ontario conducted by the Bilingual Education Project of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (see, for example, Barik and Swain 1978(a), 1978(b); Swain and Barik 1976; Swain and Lapkin 1977). One of the major research questions to which these studies have been addressed concerns the degree of second language proficiency attained by the immersion students: how much French is acquired by English-speaking students in these bilingual programs compared to that acquired by students in a regular program taking 20 to 40 minutes daily of core French or conventional French as a second language training? Through the use of standardized French achievement tests and other French measures developed by the Bilingual Education Project (e.g. Barik 1975, 1976; Barik, Swain, and Schloss 1978), it was determined early in the longitudinal study of early French immersion that immersion pupils were attaining a level of second language proficiency far superior to that of the comparison pupils taking core French. It became clear that a more appropriate reference group for measuring French language proficiency would consist of native French-speaking pupils of the same age and grade level. In other words, a shift of emphasis in the original research question has occurred over the past several years so that now the focus is on the degree to which immersion students can attain native-like ability in the second language (Lapkin 1978).

Verbal, Visual, and Kinesthetic Error Feedback in the Learning of a Simple Motor Task

Abstract Sixty subjects (30 males and 30 females) attempted to learn a self-paced positioning task using verbal, visual, or kinesthetic error feedback. The three methods of presenting error information were found to be equally effective in learning the task. Contrary to previous findings, the results of the present study support the use of kinesthetic error feedback in early stages of learning. The observed viability of kinesthetic error feedback compared with verbal and visual error feedback is enlightening in view of subject's orientation toward the use of more familiar verbal or visual cues rather than novel kinesthetic cues. No significant sex effects were found to exist in the present study.

Effects of selected levels of misspelling and mispronunciation on comprehension and retention

Abstract Previous research by the authors suggests that moderate degrees of mispronunciation in a message may not affect comprehension or retention. This study expands the previous research by investigating the relative effect of mode of presenting verbal errors on comprehension and retention. Misspellings were compared with mispronunciations to determine if one mode (i.e., written vs. oral) tended to affect comprehension and retention more than the other. Results indicated that, although subjects perceived three significantly different levels of mispronunciation and misspelling in messages, neither increasing the frequency of verbal errors in a message nor altering the mode of presenting a message significantly affected comprehension or retention.