The Mapping from Sound Structure to the Lexicon in Aphasia: Evidence from Rhyme and Repetition Priming

Spoken-word processing in aphasia: Effects of item overlap and item repetition

“…This direct comparison between overlap effects and repetition effects was not possible in the previous study (Janse, 2006). Furthermore, the current investigation of initial overlap and repetition priming effects in aphasia complements the study by Blumstein et al (2000) who varied prime-target lag in a repetition priming study and found that Broca's and Wernicke's aphasic patients, unlike the control subjects, did not show increased repetition priming effects (or even absence of priming) at the shortest lags, relative to longer lags. In the current study, aphasic patients of different aphasic syndromes were included, with a focus on anomic patients' lexical-processing performance.…”

“…In language-impaired populations, creation of such connections is impaired. In the Blumstein et al (2000), aphasic patients, unlike controls, showed no repetition effects for nonwords, not even at the shortest lag. This indicates how rapidly phonological representations decay in aphasic patients.…”

“…The fact that the repetition effect turned out to be slow to accrue, for all aphasics, including anomic patients, fits in with earlier accounts of repetition priming (or the lack thereof). Blumstein et al (2000) investigated rhyme and repetition priming with Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics and found that the Broca's aphasics, unlike the Wernicke's aphasics and the control subjects, showed no facilitatory repetition effect, if primes and targets were presented as pairs. In Blumstein et al's Experiment 2 (2000), in which words were repeated in a listwise presentation with varying numbers of intervening items, a repetition priming effect was found for Broca's and Wernicke's patients, as well as for control adults.…”

“…Utman et al, 2001;Kittredge, Davis, & Blumstein, 2006, or with list priming with 0 intervening items, cf. Blumstein et al, 2000). However, the current study was set up to investigate the time course of the priming effects of item overlap and item repetition, and deactivation was expected to be slowed in the aphasic population.…”

“…A second question is whether the size of the facilitatory item repetition effect is affected by time compression. Given that repetition effects are normally maximal in size at short lags (cf., e.g., Blumstein et al, 2000), they are expected to be fast and thus to be relatively unaffected by time compression.…”