Effects of sentential stress and word class upon comprehension in Broca's aphasics

The roles which word class (open/closed) and sentential stress play in the sentence comprehension processes of both agrammatic (Broca's) aphasics and normal listeners were examined with a word monitoring task. Overall, normal listeners responded more quickly to stressed than to unstressed items...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Brain and language 1980-05, Vol.10 (1), p.132-144
Main Authors: Swinney, David A, Zurif, Edgar B, Cutler, Anne
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aphasia - diagnosis
Aphasia, Broca - diagnosis
Aphasia, Broca - psychology
Cues
Humans
Phonetics
Reaction Time
Semantics
Speech Perception
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Summary:The roles which word class (open/closed) and sentential stress play in the sentence comprehension processes of both agrammatic (Broca's) aphasics and normal listeners were examined with a word monitoring task. Overall, normal listeners responded more quickly to stressed than to unstressed items, but showed no effect of word class. Aphasics also responded more quickly to stressed than to unstressed materials, but, unlike the normals, responded faster to open than to closed class words regardless of their stress. The results are interpreted as support for the theory that Broca's aphasics lack the functional underlying open/closed class word distinction used in word recognition by normal listeners.
ISSN:0093-934X
1090-2155
DOI:10.1016/0093-934X(80)90044-9