Background: The comprehension profile of people with agrammatism is a debated topic. Syntactic complexity and cognitive resources, in particular phonological short-term memory (pSTM), are considered as crucial components by different interpretative accounts. Aim: To investigate the interaction of syntactic complexity and of pSTM in sentence comprehension in a group of persons with aphasia with and without agrammatism. Methods & Procedures: A cohort of 30 participants presenting with aphasia was assessed for syntactic comprehension and for pSTM. A total of 15 presented with agrammatism and 15 had fluent aphasia. Outcomes & Results: Linear nested mixed-model analyses revealed a significant interaction between sentence type and pSTM. In particular, participants with lower pSTM scores showed a reduced comprehension of centre-embedded object relatives and long coordinated sentences. Moreover, a significant interaction was found between sentence type and agrammatism, with a lower performance for passives within the agrammatic group. Conclusions & Implications: These results confirm that pSTM is involved in the comprehension of complex structures with an important computational load, in particular coordinated sentences, and long-distance filler gap dependencies. On the contrary, the specific deficit of the agrammatic group with passives is a pure syntactic deficit, with no involvement of pSTM.

Gilardone, G., Viganò, M., Costantini, G., Monti, A., Corbo, M., Cecchetto, C., et al. (2023). The role of verbal short-term memory in complex sentence comprehension: An observational study on aphasia. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE & COMMUNICATION DISORDERS, 58(4 (July/August 2023)), 1182-1190 [10.1111/1460-6984.12851].

The role of verbal short-term memory in complex sentence comprehension: An observational study on aphasia

Gilardone, Giulia
;
Costantini, Giulio;Cecchetto, Carlo;Papagno, Costanza
2023

Abstract

Background: The comprehension profile of people with agrammatism is a debated topic. Syntactic complexity and cognitive resources, in particular phonological short-term memory (pSTM), are considered as crucial components by different interpretative accounts. Aim: To investigate the interaction of syntactic complexity and of pSTM in sentence comprehension in a group of persons with aphasia with and without agrammatism. Methods & Procedures: A cohort of 30 participants presenting with aphasia was assessed for syntactic comprehension and for pSTM. A total of 15 presented with agrammatism and 15 had fluent aphasia. Outcomes & Results: Linear nested mixed-model analyses revealed a significant interaction between sentence type and pSTM. In particular, participants with lower pSTM scores showed a reduced comprehension of centre-embedded object relatives and long coordinated sentences. Moreover, a significant interaction was found between sentence type and agrammatism, with a lower performance for passives within the agrammatic group. Conclusions & Implications: These results confirm that pSTM is involved in the comprehension of complex structures with an important computational load, in particular coordinated sentences, and long-distance filler gap dependencies. On the contrary, the specific deficit of the agrammatic group with passives is a pure syntactic deficit, with no involvement of pSTM.
Articolo in rivista - Articolo scientifico
agrammatism; aphasia; phonological short-term memory; sentence comprehension;
English
1-feb-2023
2023
58
4 (July/August 2023)
1182
1190
none
Gilardone, G., Viganò, M., Costantini, G., Monti, A., Corbo, M., Cecchetto, C., et al. (2023). The role of verbal short-term memory in complex sentence comprehension: An observational study on aphasia. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE & COMMUNICATION DISORDERS, 58(4 (July/August 2023)), 1182-1190 [10.1111/1460-6984.12851].
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10281/402735
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