Automated analysis of the Cinderella story

Abstract

Background AphasiaBank is a collaborative project whose goal is to develop an archival database of the discourse of individuals with aphasia. Along with databases on first language acquisition, classroom discourse, second language acquisition, and other topics, it forms a component of the general TalkBank database. It uses tools from the wider system that are further adapted to the particular goal of studying language use in aphasia. Aims The goal of this paper is to illustrate how TalkBank analytic tools can be applied to AphasiaBank data. Methods & Procedures Both aphasic (n = 24) and non-aphasic (n = 25) participants completed a 1-hour standardised videotaped data elicitation protocol. These sessions were transcribed and tagged automatically for part of speech. One component of the larger protocol was the telling of the Cinderella story. For these narratives we compared lexical diversity across the groups and computed the top 10 nouns and verbs across both groups. We then examined the profiles for two participants in greater detail. Conclusions Using these tools we showed that, in a story-retelling task, aphasic speakers had a marked reduction in lexical diversity and a greater use of light verbs. For example, aphasic speakers often substituted “girl” for “stepsister” and “go” for “disappear”. These findings illustrate how it is possible to use TalkBank tools to analyse AphasiaBank data.

Lexical diversity for adults with and without aphasia across discourse elicitation tasks

“…The code used for the analysis can be found at www.asu.edu/clas/shs/aald/current_research.html. See MacWhinney, Fromm, Holland, Forbes, and Wright (2010) for a more detailed example of automated analyses performed using CLAN.…”

Do age-related word retrieval difficulties appear (or disappear) in connected speech?

“…Regardless of the total output or the total number of specific words they produce, most individuals with aphasia use a restricted set of words (e.g., Armstrong, 2001; Behrns, Wengelin, Broberg, & Hartelius, 2009; Crutch & Warrington, 2003; Fergadiotis & Wright, 2011; MacWhinney, Fromm, Holland, Forbes, & Wright, 2010). For example, Fergadiotis and Wright (2011) elicited connected speech from 25 people with mild to moderate anomic or conduction aphasia and from 27 neurologically healthy people, and found that people with aphasia produced a lower ratio of word types to word tokens (adjusted for narrative length, i.e., using the D measure).…”

Verb Production in Aphasia: Testing the Division of Labor between Syntax and Semantics

“…For stories that are commonly re-told as a means of assessing narrative language, such as the Cinderella story used in several previous studies of light verb usage (e.g., Kim & Thompson, 2004), a "core lexicon" has been devised of key words that make the story semantically complete (MacWhinney et al, 2010). In narratives produced by individuals who experience difficulties in lexicalsemantic access, it is expected that use of these "core" words would be reduced.…”

“…Many measures of semantic and syntactic ability in narrative language have been proposed in the literature, in studies of both language development and aphasia (Templin, 1957;Lee, 1974;Malvern & Richards, 1997;Turner & Greene, 1977;MacWhinney, Fromm, Holland, Forbes, & Wright, 2010;see Armstrong, 2000, for a review of narrative analysis in aphasia). In order to quantify syntactic ability, it is necessary to capture a variety of possible impairments.…”