Structural prediction in aphasia: Evidence from either

Abstract

Young neurotypical adults engage in prediction during language comprehension (e.g., Altmann & Kamide, 1999; Staub & Clifton, 2006; Yoshida, Dickey & Sturt, 2013). The role of prediction in aphasic comprehension is less clear. Some evidence suggests that lexical prediction may be spared in aphasia (Dickey et al., 2014; Love & Webb, 1977; cf. Mack et al, 2013), and there is even indication that structural prediction may be spared in some people with aphasia (PWA; e.g. Hanne, Burchert, De Bleser, & Vashishth, 2015). The current self-paced reading experiment manipulated the presence of either to examine structural prediction among PWA and a set of similar-aged neurotypical control participants. Consistent with intact structural prediction for both groups of participants, when either preceded a disjunction, reading times were faster on the or and second disjunct (cf. Staub & Clifton, 2006). For neurotypical controls, this effect of the presence vs. absence of either shrank reliably as more experimental items were encountered, whereas for PWA there was a non-significant trend for it to grow as more experimental items were encountered. These findings indicate that PWA and older neurotypical individuals can use a lexical cue to predict the structural form of upcoming material during comprehension, but that on-line adaptation to patterns in the local context may be different for the two groups.

Looking for a Location: Dissociated Effects of Event-Related Plausibility and Verb–Argument Information on Predictive Processing in Aphasia

“…Some studies have found evidence suggesting that PWA do engage in prediction, particularly when provided with strong morphosyntactic cues (Hanne, Burchert, De Bleser, & Vasishth, 2015;Warren et al, 2016). Others have not found evidence of predictive processing among PWA.…”

“…To date, there has been relatively limited investigation of predictive processing in aphasia (Dickey, Warren, Hayes, & Milburn, 2014;Hanne, Burchert, De Bleser, & Vasishth, 2015;Mack, Ji, & Thompson, 2013;Warren, Dickey, & Lei, 2016). Study results have been mixed, with some finding evidence of intact prediction in aphasia (Dickey, Warren, Hayes, & Milburn, 2014;Hanne, Burchert, De Bleser, & Vasishth, 2015;Warren et al, 2016), and others finding evidence of impaired predictive processing (Mack et al, 2013).…”

“…Study results have been mixed, with some finding evidence of intact prediction in aphasia (Dickey, Warren, Hayes, & Milburn, 2014;Hanne, Burchert, De Bleser, & Vasishth, 2015;Warren et al, 2016), and others finding evidence of impaired predictive processing (Mack et al, 2013). However, these studies have not attempted to tease apart the contribution of these two types of information in predictive processing in aphasia, even though language-specific processing and conceptual-semantic processing can be dissociated among people with aphasia McNeil & Pratt, 2001).…”

A rational inference approach to group and individual-level sentence comprehension performance in aphasia

“…about noise or intention), which are experience-dependent. Experience-based and adaptive effects are just beginning to be explored in aphasia (DeDe, 2013a,b; Knilans & DeDe, 2015; Gahl, 2002; Schuchard & Thompson, 2014; Warren, Dickey & Lei, 2016), but understanding their role may be relevant to both improving models of aphasic language processing and advancing aphasia treatment. Only one study to date, by Gibson, Sandberg, Fedorenko, Bergen and Kiran (2015), has evaluated the rational inference account as applied to aphasic comprehension, and it provides promising support for the theory.…”

The importance of situated language use for aphasia rehabilitation

“…This supports the idea that PWA can rely on common ground and produce increasingly shorter, less complex utterances to refer to 'given' information during interaction. Finally, the presence of a communicative context has also been shown to support comprehension in aphasia: strongly predictive sentence contexts have been shown to facilitate lexical retrieval and production in PWA (Warren et al, 2016;Love & Webb, 1977;Dickey et al, 2014), though this effect is slower compared to non-brain damaged controls. Similarly, PWA showed an N400 effect like non-brain damaged controls when hearing a semantically unexpected word in a sentence, though this effect is less pronounced and delayed in aphasia (Khachatryan et al, 2017;Swaab et al, 1997;Hagoort et al, 1996).…”