scholarly journals What Language Disorders Reveal About the Mechanisms of Morphological Processing

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Manouilidou ◽  
Michaela Nerantzini ◽  
Brianne M. Chiappetta ◽  
M. Marsel Mesulam ◽  
Cynthia K. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Language Disorders ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Word Knowledge ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Grammatical Knowledge ◽  
Impaired Performance ◽  
Language Measures

We addressed an understudied topic in the literature of language disorders, that is, processing of derivational morphology, a domain which requires integration of semantic and syntactic knowledge. Current psycholinguistic literature suggests that word processing involves morpheme recognition, which occurs immediately upon encountering a complex word. Subsequent processes take place in order to interpret the combination of stem and affix. We investigated the abilities of individuals with agrammatic (PPA-G) and logopenic (PPA-L) variants of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) and individuals with stroke-induced agrammatic aphasia (StrAg) to process pseudowords which violate either the syntactic (word class) rules (*reheavy) or the semantic compatibility (argument structure specifications of the base form) rules (*reswim). To this end, we quantified aspects of word knowledge and explored how the distinct deficits of the populations under investigation affect their performance. Thirty brain-damaged individuals and 10 healthy controls participated in a lexical decision task. We hypothesized that the two agrammatic groups (PPA-G and StrAg) would have difficulties detecting syntactic violations, while no difficulties were expected for PPA-L. Accuracy and Reaction Time (RT) patterns indicated: the PPA-L group made fewer errors but yielded slower RTs compared to the two agrammatic groups which did not differ from one another. Accuracy rates suggest that individuals with PPA-L distinguish *reheavy from *reswim, reflecting access to and differential processing of syntactic vs. semantic violations. In contrast, the two agrammatic groups do not distinguish between *reheavy and *reswim. The lack of difference stems from a particularly impaired performance in detecting syntactic violations, as they were equally unsuccessful at detecting *reheavy and *reswim. Reduced grammatical abilities assessed through language measures are a significant predictor for this performance, suggesting that the “hardware” to process syntactic information is impaired. Therefore, they can only judge violations semantically where both *reheavy and *reswim fail to pass as semantically ill-formed. This finding further suggests that impaired grammatical knowledge can affect word level processing as well. Results are in line with the psycholinguistic literature which postulates the existence of various stages in accessing complex pseudowords, highlighting the contribution of syntactic/grammatical knowledge. Further, it points to the worth of studying impaired language performance for informing normal language processes.

Neurocognitive Mechanisms of Agrammatism

2019 ◽  
pp. 795-826
Author(s):  
Cynthia K. Thompson ◽  
Jennifer E. Mack
Keyword(s):  
White Matter ◽  
Argument Structure ◽  
Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Grammatical Knowledge ◽  
Complex Sentences ◽  
Language Deficit ◽  
Verb Argument Structure ◽  
Language Pathways ◽  
State Of The Science

This chapter provides a state-of-the-science summary of the neurobiology of agrammatism, an acquired impairment of grammar that may result from stroke or neurodegenerative disease (i.e., primary progressive aphasia). The chapter provides an overview of the language-deficit patterns that characterize agrammatism, such as impaired verb retrieval, verb inflection, verb-argument structure, and production and comprehension of complex sentences. The neurocognitive mechanisms of these deficit patterns are also reviewed, with particular emphasis on recent studies examining the real-time mechanisms of agrammatism and their neural correlates. The picture that emerges is that agrammatism results from impairments of grammatical processing, rather than grammatical knowledge. These deficits largely arise from damage to left hemisphere dorsal language pathways, in particular temporal-parietal and inferior frontal language regions and dorsal white matter tracts.

Effects of a morpheme-based training procedure on the literacy skills of readers with a reading disability

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 1061-1082
Author(s):  
Irit Bar-Kochva ◽  
Sebastian Peter Korinth ◽  
Marcus Hasselhorn
Keyword(s):  
Word Processing ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Control Procedure ◽  
Training Procedure ◽  
Control Intervention ◽  
General Improvement ◽  
Written Word ◽  
Complex Words

AbstractThe effect of a computerized morpheme-based training procedure on the reading and writing skills of reading-disabled participants (N = 30, mean age = 11.23 years, SD = 0.935) was examined. Considering that fast morphological analysis has been found to have a central role in written word processing of skilled readers, the following training was designed to enhance this process: it consisted of a visual lexical-decision task in which morphologically complex words were visually presented while the duration of the word-stems’ presentation was gradually restricted. A control intervention consisted of the same task, except that the duration of a nonmorphological unit’s presentation was manipulated. The children were divided into two groups: one underwent the morpheme-based intervention, and the other underwent the control intervention. The morpheme-based training procedure had a positive effect beyond that of the control procedure on the spelling of untrained word stems embedded in trained prefixes and suffixes. These results suggest a general improvement in retrieval of orthographic–morphological representations in spelling. Improvements in other measures could, however, not be ascribed to the morphological manipulation alone. These results emphasize the link between morphological processing and spelling. However, the morpheme-based training procedure appears to be less relevant to the improvement of reading.

The effects of emotionality and lexical category on L2 word processing in different tasks: Evidence from late Chinese–English bilinguals

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182110418
Author(s):  
Xiaogen Liao ◽  
Chuanbin Ni
Keyword(s):  
Stroop Task ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
English Word ◽  
Task Type ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Emotional Stroop ◽  
Emotional Words ◽  
Emotional Stroop Task ◽  
Lexical Categories

Although it has been well established that emotional content influences language comprehension, the effects of emotionality on L2 (second language: English) word processing require further clarification. Notably, most previous studies unsystematically mixed words of different lexical categories, although they often showed processing differences. Here, using the same set of tightly matched negative, positive, and neutral words across three lexical categories (i.e., nouns, verbs, adjectives), we examined the effects of emotionality and lexical category on L2 word processing by conducting three experiments. In these experiments, three groups of late Chinese–English bilinguals performed three tasks: the emotional Stroop task (Experiment 1), the lexical decision task (Experiment 2), and the emotional categorisation task (Experiment 3), respectively. Overall, our data suggested that emotionality and lexical category exerted no influence on L2 word processing in the emotional Stroop task, but acted interactively to influence it in the other two tasks. The results evidenced that the processing of L2 emotional words was sensitive to task type. Therefore, we conclude that future research on L2 word processing should fully consider the emotionality, lexical category, and task type.

scholarly journals Lateralızatıon of Non-Word Processıng in Monolınguals

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 185-190
Author(s):  
Filiz Mergen ◽  
Gulmira Kuruoglu
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Lexical Decision Task ◽  
Left Hemisphere ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
Lexical Processing ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Hemispheric Dominance ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Visual Hemifield ◽  
Overwhelming Evidence

A great bulk of research in the psycholinguistic literature has been dedicated to hemispheric organization of words. An overwhelming evidence suggests that the left hemisphere is primarily responsible for lexical processing. However, non-words, which look similar to real words but lack meaningful associations, is underrepresented in the laterality literature. This study investigated the lateralization of Turkish non-words. Fifty-three Turkish monolinguals performed a lexical decision task in a visual hemifield paradigm. An analysis of their response times revealed left-hemispheric dominance for non-words, adding further support to the literature. The accuracy of their answers, however, were comparable regardless of the field of presentation. The results were discussed in light of the psycholinguistic word processing views.

How word frequency affects morphological processing in monolinguals and bilinguals

2003 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
MINNA LEHTONEN ◽  
MATTI LAINE
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Frequency Range ◽  
Medium Frequency ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Full Form ◽  
Differential Pattern ◽  
Complex Words

The present study investigated processing of morphologically complex words in three different frequency ranges in monolingual Finnish speakers and Finnish-Swedish bilinguals. By employing a visual lexical decision task, we found a differential pattern of results in monolinguals vs. bilinguals. Monolingual Finns seemed to process low frequency and medium frequency inflected Finnish nouns mostly by morpheme-based recognition but high frequency inflected nouns through full-form representations. In contrast, bilinguals demonstrated a processing delay for all inflections throughout the whole frequency range, suggesting decomposition for all inflected targets. This may reflect different amounts of exposure to the word forms in the two groups. Inflected word forms that are encountered very frequently will acquire full-form representations, which saves processing time. However, with the lower rates of exposure, which characterize bilingual individuals, full-form representations do not start to develop.

Affective significance enhances covert attention: Roles of anxiety and word familiarity

2008 ◽  
Vol 61 (11) ◽  
pp. 1669-1686 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel G. Calvo ◽  
Michael W. Eysenck
Keyword(s):  
Covert Attention ◽  
Probe Word ◽  
Word Knowledge ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
High Anxiety ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Emotional Words ◽  
Eye Fixations ◽  
Word Familiarity

To investigate the processing of emotional words by covert attention, threat-related, positive, and neutral word primes were presented parafoveally (2.2° away from fixation) for 150 ms, under gaze-contingent foveal masking, to prevent eye fixations. The primes were followed by a probe word in a lexical-decision task. In Experiment 1, results showed a parafoveal threat–anxiety superiority: Parafoveal prime threat words facilitated responses to probe threat words for high-anxiety individuals, in comparison with neutral and positive words, and relative to low-anxiety individuals. This reveals an advantage in threat processing by covert attention, without differences in overt attention. However, anxiety was also associated with greater familiarity with threat words, and the parafoveal priming effects were significantly reduced when familiarity was covaried out. To further examine the role of word knowledge, in Experiment 2, vocabulary and word familiarity were equated for low- and high-anxiety groups. In these conditions, the parafoveal threat–anxiety advantage disappeared. This suggests that the enhanced covert-attention effect depends on familiarity with words.

Cognitive Morphology in Swedish: Studies with Normals and Aphasics

1994 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Ahlsén
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Speech Production ◽  
Oral Reading ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Simple Processing ◽  
Slips Of The Tongue ◽  
Whole Word ◽  
Swedish Data

A multiple methods approach was applied to the study of morphology on the processing of lexical items in Swedish. Data from slips-of-the-tongue, agrammatic speech production, agrammatic oral reading, and lexical decision experiments were used. The results indicate that whole word processing as well as morphological processing takes place in the different types of tasks. The type of processing seems to vary along a continuum, with whole word processing as the most commonly applied type in automatized and relatively simple processing (such as lexical decision for common Swedish words), whereas signs of morpheme-based processing appear less often, and perhaps in less automatized tasks (such as agrammatic speech production).

scholarly journals Homophone auditory processing in cross-linguistic perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 529
Author(s):  
Youtao Lu ◽  
James L. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Auditory Processing ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Intrinsic Properties ◽  
Native Japanese Speakers ◽  
Processing Abilities ◽  
Chinese And English

Previous studies reported conflicting results for the effects of homophony on visual word processing across languages. On finding significant differences in homophone density in Japanese, Mandarin Chinese and English, we conducted two experiments to compare native speakers’ competence in homophone auditory processing across these three languages. A lexical decision task showed that the effect of homophony on word processing in Japanese was significantly less detrimental than in Mandarin and English. A word-learning task showed that native Japanese speakers were the fastest in learning novel homophones. These results suggest that language-intrinsic properties influence corresponding language processing abilities of native speakers.

scholarly journals Individual differences in processing pseudo-inflected nonwords

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Schwarz ◽  
Mirjana Bozic ◽  
Brechtje Post
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Lexical Access ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Vocabulary Size ◽  
Visual Priming ◽  
Morphological Segmentation ◽  
Visual Access ◽  
Whole Word

While the role of word stems has received much attention in morphological processing, the effects of inflectional suffixes on lexical access remain unclear. We address this gap as well as the contribution of individual differences on morphological segmentation with a visual priming experiment. Inflected and uninflected nonwords were preceded by a non-linguistic baseline string or the target’s suffix/word-final letters (e.g. XXXXing  SMOYING). The results indicate that the suffix length is crucial for morphological effects to surface in visual priming and that morphological processing may be modulated by the individual’s reading profile and vocabulary size. We interpret this as evidence for variable morphemic activation: morphological cues can facilitate visual access when rapid whole-word processing is unavailable. The theoretical implications are discussed.

scholarly journals RIGHT VS. LEFT TEMPORAL LOBE SEMIOLOGY IN DEMENTIA: LESSONS FROM TWO CASES WITH FOCAL FRONTOTEMPORAL DEMENTIA SYNDROMES

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vitor Arca ◽  
Pedro Albuquerque ◽  
Victor Correia ◽  
Amanda Pires ◽  
Hugo Araújo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Frontotemporal Dementia ◽  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Word Processing ◽  
Brain Mri ◽  
Cerebral Atrophy ◽  
Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Left Temporal Lobe ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Mini Mental Status Examination ◽  
The Right

Background: Case 1: a 59-year old man presented to our service with 4 years of progressive cognitive and behavioral symptoms. He became forgetful and experienced difficulties managing his payments. After 4 years he could no longer recognise his relatives. Cognitive assessment showed a mini-mental status examination of 17/30. MRI and SPECT revealed respectively focal atrophy and hipoperfusion of the frontal regions and anterior right temporal lobe. Case 2: a 72-year-old woman was brought to evaluation with a 5-years history of progressive language and behavioral deterioration. Her family reported early speech errors and behavioral changes, with a marked aggressiveness, ritualistic behaviors and hyperorality. Cognitive evaluation revealed a MMSE of 6/30 mainly due to a relatively fluent afasia. Brain MRI showed asymmetric cerebral atrophy, more prominent in the anterior left temporal lobe. Objective: N/H Methods: N/H Results: N/H Conclusion: We describe two cases of suspected frontotemporal dementia (FTD) syndromes. The left ATL may receive proportionately more input from the lexical and phonological centers subserving word processing. The right ATL may receive more input from right-lateralized emotion processing hubs. Focal atrophy of the left anterior temporal lobe has been associated with the semantic type of primary progressive aphasia evolving to semantic dementia. In contrast, focal atrophy of the right temporal lobe has recently been described as a controversial entity reported as the right temporal variant of FTD.

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