scholarly journals Storytelling in speakers with and without brain damage: A macrolinguistic approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 14-27
Author(s):  
Mira B. Bergelson ◽  
◽  
Mariya V. Khudyakova ◽  
Yulia S. Akinina ◽  
Olga V. Dragoy ◽  
...  

Narrative discourse is investigated in clinical and healthy populations. This study explored the discourse strategies used to tell stories, comparing the patterns of people with left- and right-hemisphere brain damage, as well as healthy speakers. We analyzed picture-elicited discourses by four people with aphasia, two people with right hemisphere damage, and four healthy speakers. We examined their microlinguistic properties, as well as macrolinguistic features, such as the discourse production type of utterances and patterns of story component usage. We identified two storytelling strategies used by the speakers: a narrative strategy marked by a prevalence of narrative discourse production type utterances and scarce use of evaluation clauses, and a quasi-narrative strategy with the opposite pattern. These strategies were used by both healthy speakers and participants with brain damage

2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 639-654 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret T. Lehman-Blake ◽  
Connie A. Tompkins

Predictive inferencing was evaluated in 13 adults with right hemisphere damage (RHD) and 11 adults without brain damage (NBD). Brief narrative stimuli that strongly suggested a single outcome were constructed to vary recency of mention of inference-related information. Reading times were recorded for narrative-final sentences that disconfirmed the target inferences. Slowed reading time on the final sentences was an indicator of inference generation. Adults with RHD generated target predictive inferences in contexts with recent mention of strongly biasing inference-related information. This group also evidenced maintenance of inferences over time, but to a lesser degree than participants in the NBD group. Overall, individuals with better auditory comprehension or larger estimated working memory capacity tended to maintain inferences better than did the other participants. The results are discussed in relation to current hypotheses of inferencing and discourse comprehension in adults with RHD.


2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 400-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Connie A. Tompkins ◽  
Margaret T. Lehman-Blake ◽  
Annette Baumgaertner ◽  
Wiltrud Fassbinder

This study examined the generality of a previous finding indicating that difficulty suppressing or inhibiting context-inappropriate interpretations is an important predictor of narrative discourse comprehension for adults with right brain damage RBD) (C. A. Tompkins, A. Baumgaertner, M. T. Lehman, & W. Fassbinder, 2000). Forty adults with RBD and 39 without brain damage listened to two-sentence stimuli and judged whether a probe word fit with the overall stimulus meaning. An ambiguous initial sentence elicited both dominant and less preferred inferences, and the second sentence resolved the ambiguity toward the initially less-likely interpretation. Probes represented the dominant inference for the first sentence and were presented at two poststimulus intervals. Probe judgment response times indicated that neither group suppressed the eventually inappropriate inferences in the time intervals studied. However, multiple regression analysis demonstrated that for individual participants with RBD, the extent of suppression from one interval to the next was a significant predictor of performance on a specialized measure of inference comprehension. The discussion evaluates these findings and identifies directions for future research.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (2/2020(771)) ◽  
pp. 94-105
Author(s):  
Aneta Syta

Right hemisphere brain damage manifests itself in the language at the level of not only expression but also reception. Utterances of people with right hemisphere dysfunctions are often disorderly and illogical. As recipients, patients with right hemisphere brain damage, for instance, interrupt their interlocutor’s utterance, cannot understand jokes, mockeries, or ambiguous messages. The paper describes language and communication defi cits arising from right hemisphere brain damage and cases of patients suffering from right hemisphere disorder. The data obtained in the course of examining people with right hemisphere damage show that the most disturbed aspects of language include: lexical and semantic processing, processing complex language information, discourse, and prosody.


2000 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Connie A. Tompkins ◽  
Annette Baumgaertner ◽  
Margaret T. Lehman ◽  
Wiltrud Fassbinder

Normal comprehension skill is linked with the proficiency of a suppression mechanism, which functions to dampen mental activation that becomes irrelevant or inappropriate to a final interpretation. This study investigated suppression and discourse comprehension in adults with right brain damage (RBD). To index suppression function, 40 adults with RBD and 40 without brain damage listened to sentence stimuli that biased the meaning of a sentence-final lexical ambiguity (e.g., SPADE), then judged whether a probe word (e.g., CARDS) fit the overall sentence meaning. Probes represented the contextually inappropriate meanings of the ambiguities and were presented in two conditions: 175 ms and 1000 ms poststimulus. The same probes were used with unambiguous comparison stimuli. Probe judgment response times indicated that only the group without brain damage suppressed inappropriate interpretations over time. In a multiple regression analysis, suppression function added significantly to predicting performance on a general measure of narrative discourse comprehension for participants with RBD. The discussion addresses how suppression deficits may account more broadly for comprehension difficulties after RBD; it also considers several unresolved issues concerning the suppression construct and the suppression deficit hypothesis.


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