Rhyme Priming in Aphasia: The Role of Phonology in Lexical Access

Abstract

The present e~periment was conducted to explore the facilitory effects of rhyme in lexical processing in braindamaged individuals. Normal subjects and non-fluent and fluent aphasie subjects performed auditory lexical decision and rhyme judgement tasks, in which prime-target pairs were phonologically related (either identical or rhyming) or unrelated. Results revealed rhyme facilitation of lexical decisions to real-word targets for normal and non-fluent aphasie subjects; for fluent aphasie subjects, results were equivocal. In the rhyme judgement task, facilitory effects of rhyme were found for all three groups with real-word tar.gets. None of the groups showed clear rhyme facilitation effects with non-word targets in either task. Findings are discussed with reference to models of lexical access and the role of phonology in lexical processing in normal and aphasie populations.ii

Spoken word processing and the effect of phonemic mismatch in aphasia

“…In line with some researchers who have grouped aphasic patients into fluent vs nonfluent aphasia type groups (e.g., Baum, 1997;Gordon & Baum, 1994), the results will also be analysed for such group differences to investigate whether the underactivation/overactivation differences might hold for this broader classification. The choice not to restrict the aphasic population to those with either a clear Broca's or Wernicke's aphasia diagnosis was not just a pragmatic one.…”

The role of inferior frontal cortex in phonological processing

“…For example, patients may have difficulty with auditory rhyme judgments Gordon & Baum, 1994), and segmental manipulation or blending (addition or deletion of segments) (Berndt et al, 1996). Difficulty in blending tasks may occur in patients who have acquired phonological dyslexia (particular difficulty reading nonwords), suggesting an important relationship between reading and auditory phonological processing, specifically in tasks that rely on correspondences between graphemes and phonemes.…”

Lexical competition effects in aphasia: Deactivation of lexical candidates in spoken word processing

“…This latter Wnding agrees with the results of Marslen-Wilson and Zwitserlood (1989) for initial maximal mismatches: no mediated priming eVects was found for Dutch target bij ('bee') when rhyme word prime woning ('dwelling') or rhyme non-word prime foning were used to activate honing ('honey'). Gordon and Baum (1994) investigated whether the lack of mediated priming in nonXuent aphasic patients (Milberg et al, 1988) should be attributed to a lack of phonological priming or to the absence of (discernable) spreading of activation to semantic associates. Rhyme facilitation was found for the control group and for the nonXuent patient group.…”

“…The results of these latter two studies suggest that absence of mediated priming in the nonXuent patient group in the Milberg et al (1988) study should be attributed to spreading of semantic activation, rather than to a lack of phonological priming. To replicate and extend the results of Gordon and Baum (1994), Baum (1997) investigated the eVects of phonological, semantic, and mediated priming in control participants, Xuent and nonXuent aphasic patients. Baum (1997) hypothesised that even if the control non-brain-damaged subjects do not exhibit mediated semantic priming, the Xuent aphasics might, if lexical access of these patients should indeed be characterised as 'overactivation' (cf.…”