Investigation of the effects of semantic neighbours in aphasia: a facilitated naming study
(2019) Aphasiology — Vol. 34, n° 7, p. 840-864 (2019)
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- Authors
Biedermann, Britta 
Nickels, Lyndsey
- Abstract
- Background: It is well established that word retrieval can beimproved in people with aphasia. However, there has been littleresearch regarding the influence of specific word properties on thesuccess of such treatment.Aims: This study aimed to better understand the mechanismssupporting naming treatment effects in aphasia, by exploringeffects of word-specific semantic neighbourhood variables (basedon featural overlap or on association strength) on the outcomes ofa facilitation task.Methods And Procedures: Two individuals, one with primarilylexical-semantic difficulties (SJS) and one with primarily lexicaldifficulties (DEH) participated. Their picture naming performancewas assessed before and after a facilitation task in which eachtarget word was repeated in the presence of the correspondingpicture.Outcomes And Results: Both participants showed improved nam-ing following the facilitation task. However, for DEH, inhibitoryeffects of words with many semantic neighbours were enhancedby the facilitation task. For SJS, in contrast, targets with a stronglyassociated word in the lexicon were less likely to result ina semantic error compared to those with an associate of weakerassociation strength.Conclusions: It is hypothesised that individuals like DEH, withlexical retrieval impairments, may show increased sensitivity toneighbourhood density, whereas individuals like SJS, with animpairment of the links between semantics to lemmas, mayshow sensitivity to other neighbourhood measures that are morelikely to be encoded at the semantic level.
- Affiliations
Department of Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia School of OccupationalTherapy, Social Work and Speech Pathology, Curtin University, Perth, Australia Berlin School of Mind andBrain, Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, Germany
Citations
Hameau, S., Biedermann, B., Fieder, N., & Nickels, L. (2019). Investigation of the effects of semantic neighbours in aphasia: a facilitated naming study. Aphasiology, 34(7), 840-864. https://doi.org/10.1080/02687038.2019.1652241 (Original work published 2019)