Divergent Semantic Behavior in Aphasia

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to examine the divergent semantic behaviors of 30 persons with aphasia in comparison to these same behaviors in a group of 30 normal individuals. Specifically, this study examined fluency or the number of ideas produced, flexibility or the variety of ideas produced, and communality within each subject group and between the two groups. Results support the existence of the divergent mental operation and indicate that persons with aphasia are impaired in their ability to generate semantic responses under this operation. Therefore, speech pathologists may wish to include divergent tasks in their evaluation procedures and plan therapy directed toward the retrieval of divergent responses.

Complex oral semantic verbal fluency in non-brain-damaged adults and individuals with multiple sclerosis and subjective anomia

“…It has been argued that language tasks requiring so called divergent production may be useful to detect subtle language disorders and that type of tasks also have a theoretical base (Chapey, 1977;Chapey, Rigrodsky, & Morrison, 1976). The psychologist Guilford (1959Guilford ( , 1967, who was mainly concerned with the issue of measuring intellectual abilities, has defined divergent production as a measure of the ability to exhibit fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration in thinking.…”

“…Consequently, a disruption of convergent language operations may result in a disability to correctly name objects in confrontation naming tasks or to complete sentences (for example, "you eat with a knife and __?"). In contrast, in tasks requiring divergent semantic production, there is no single correct answer; instead the focus in the assessment of the results lies on quantity, relevance, and variance in the production (Chapey et al, 1976;Guilford, 1967). Thus, while so-called convergent production tasks require single correct responses to stimuli, divergent production tasks require a person to generate several relevant responses.…”

“…Divergent thinking is usually associated with measures of degree of creativity, but it has also been investigated within several areas of language research, including in normal aging processes (Palmiero, Di Giacomo, & Passafiume, 2014), Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia (Hart & Wade, 2006). Chapey et al (1976) applied Guildford's theory of divergent thinking in a group of people with aphasia and found that impaired divergent production is an issue in acquired language impairment. Impaired divergent production was manifested in a reduced ability to produce several relevant semantic responses and a decreased flexibility in verbal fluency tasks.…”

“…Impaired divergent production was manifested in a reduced ability to produce several relevant semantic responses and a decreased flexibility in verbal fluency tasks. Chapey et al (1976) and Chapey (1977) conclude that there is a need for assessments of both divergent and convergent operations in language disorders. They argue that people with severe aphasia may be impaired in both convergent and divergent tasks, whereas persons with milder aphasia may only be affected in divergent semantic processing (Chapey, 1977(Chapey, , 1981.…”