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Verb-based anticipatory processing in aphasia

Michael W. Dickey1, 2*, Tessa Warren3, Evelyn A. Milburn3, Rebecca A. Hayes1 and Chia-Ming Lei1
  • 1 University of Pittsburgh, Communication Science & Disorders, United States
  • 2 VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, United States
  • 3 University of Pittsburgh, Psychology, United States

Healthy listeners use verb and agent+verb constraints to anticipate likely arguments (Altmann & Kamide, 1999; Kamide et al., 2003). Listeners also show early looks to unlikely but possible arguments (Boland, 2005; Borovsky, et al., 2012), suggesting that coarse-grained verb-based semantic constraints may influence early processing (Kuperberg, 2013). This study investigated the roles of verb and agent+verb constraints on expectations about likely and unlikely arguments in people with aphasia (PWA) and healthy age-matched controls. In two visual-world experiments, PWA (n=9) and older adults (n=27) heard sentences truncated at the determiner and clicked on the image that “best finished” the sentence (Mack, et al, 2013). In Experiment 1, sentences with a semantically-constraining vs. unconstraining verb (Someone will eat/move the …) were accompanied by images of: a likely target (cake), an unlikely but possible competitor (branch), and two unrelated impossible distractors (pail, van). In Experiment 2, sentences with a semantically-constraining vs. unconstraining agent+verb combination (The dog/Someone will drink the …) were accompanied by: a likely target (water), an unlikely but possible competitor (coffee), a semantically-related impossible distractor (cat – semantic associate of constraining agent), and an unrelated impossible distractor (rocks). By-participants and by-items ANOVAs showed that likelihood guided looks for both participant groups in both experiments. In the constrained condition in Experiment 1, gaze proportion was reliably higher to the target (cake) than the two impossible distractors (pail, van), with controls showing this effect in a 400-ms bin starting 400 ms after verb onset (Fig1a) and PWA approximately 400ms later, in a 400-ms bin starting 800 ms after verb onset (Fig1b). During the same time windows in the constrained condition in Experiment 2, both groups were more likely to gaze at the target (water) than the unlikely competitor (coffee) (controls, Fig1c; PWA, Fig1d). This confirms that verb constraints guide argument expectations in PWA (Mack et al., 2013), and provides novel evidence that agent+verb constraints do the same. These findings suggest that predictive processing may be preserved among PWA (Hanne, et al., 2015), particularly when grounded in event-related likelihood (McRae & Matsuki, 2009). Both participant groups also looked at unlikely but possible arguments, though for PWA this was reliable only in Expt 2. In a 400-ms bin beginning 800 ms after verb onset, gazes to the unlikely competitor (Exp. 1: branch; Exp. 2: coffee) became more likely than gazes to impossible distractors (Exp. 1: controls: ps<.01; PWA: n.s.; Exp. 2: controls: ps<.05; PWA: p1<.025, p2=.09). For the PWA only in Experiment 2, gazes to the unlikely competitor and semantically-related impossible argument patterned together. Facilitation for unlikely potential arguments is consistent with findings for young healthy adults (Kamide, et al., 2003; see Kukona, et al., 2011) and suggests that participants were unable to ignore bottom-up verb constraints (see Kukona, et al., 2014). The fact that PWA showed this interference, as well as interference from the agent-related distractor, suggests that they experience outsize interference from salient but grammatically-unlicensed semantic information (Dickey, et al., 2007; see also Milberg & Blumstein, 1981).

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health through grant number R01DC011520 to the first and second authors and by grant number UL1TR000005 to the Clinical and Translational Science Institute of the University of Pittsburgh. It is the result of work supported with resources and the use of facilities at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System.

References

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Dickey, M.W., Choy, J.J., & Thompson, C.K. (2007). Real-time comprehension of wh- movement in aphasia: Evidence from eyetracking while listening. Brain and Language, 100, 1-22.

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Mack, J.E., Yi, W., & Thompson, C. (2013). Effects of verb meaning on lexical integration in agramatic aphasia: Evidence from eye tracking. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 26, 619-636.

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Keywords: Aphasia, sentence comprehension in aphasia, verbs, Semantic Processing, prediction

Conference: Academy of Aphasia 53rd Annual Meeting, Tucson, United States, 18 Oct - 20 Oct, 2015.

Presentation Type: platform paper

Topic: Not student first author

Citation: Dickey MW, Warren T, Milburn EA, Hayes RA and Lei C (2015). Verb-based anticipatory processing in aphasia. Front. Psychol. Conference Abstract: Academy of Aphasia 53rd Annual Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2015.65.00068

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Received: 01 May 2015; Published Online: 24 Sep 2015.

* Correspondence: Dr. Michael W Dickey, University of Pittsburgh, Communication Science & Disorders, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, mdickey@pitt.edu