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Verbal pragmatic aspects of discourse production were examined in 16 right brain-damaged (RBD), 16 left brain-damaged (LBD), and 16 normal control right-handed adults. The facilitation effect of emotional content, valence hypothesis, and... more
Verbal pragmatic aspects of discourse production were examined in 16 right brain-damaged (RBD), 16 left brain-damaged (LBD), and 16 normal control right-handed adults. The facilitation effect of emotional content, valence hypothesis, and relationship between pragmatics and emotion were evaluated. Participants produced monologues while recollecting emotional and nonemotional experiences. Transcribed monologues were rated for appropriateness on 6 pragmatic features: conciseness, lexical selection, quantity, relevancy, specificity, and topic maintenance. Overall, brain-damaged groups were rated as significantly less appropriate than normals. Consistent with the facilitation effect, emotional content enhanced pragmatic performance of LBD aphasic participants yet suppressed performance of RBD participants. Contrary to the valence hypothesis, RBD participants were more impaired for positive emotions and LBD participants for negative emotions. Pragmatic appropriateness was not strongly correlated with a measure of emotional intensity.
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Preface 1. Neurolinguistics 2. The brain 3. How we know what we know about brain organization for language 4. Aphasia: classification of the syndromes 5. Aphasia: what underlies the syndromes 6. Childhood aphasia and other language... more
Preface 1. Neurolinguistics 2. The brain 3. How we know what we know about brain organization for language 4. Aphasia: classification of the syndromes 5. Aphasia: what underlies the syndromes 6. Childhood aphasia and other language disorders 7. Right-brain-damage 8. Dementia 9. Disorders of the written word: dyslexia and dysgraphia 10. Bilingualism 11. Language organisation 12. The future of neurolinguistic study Glossary Notes and further reading Index.
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Disorders in nonverbal communication of emotion have been documented in patients with right hemisphere pathology; lexical expression of emotion is virtually unstudied. In this preliminary investigation, emotionally laden slides were used... more
Disorders in nonverbal communication of emotion have been documented in patients with right hemisphere pathology; lexical expression of emotion is virtually unstudied. In this preliminary investigation, emotionally laden slides were used to elicit discourse from right brain-damaged (RBD), left brain-damaged (LBD), and normal control (NC) subjects. New techniques were developed to examine the ability of these subjects to express emotion in words; formalistic and pragmatic analyses of the discourse were conducted. RBDs, relative to NCs and LBDs, were less successful in using words to convey emotion and produced words of lower emotional intensity. LBD aphasics, despite their linguistic deficits, were comparable to NCs in conveying emotional valence. The data tend to support the speculation that the right hemisphere is dominant for lexical expression of emotion. This study has implications for the neuropsychological investigation of language, emotion, and the brain.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Science, Neuropsychology, Emotion, and 14 moreNonverbal Communication, Language, Medicine, Emotions, Right Hemisphere Functions, Humans, Male, Emotionality, Middle Aged, Emotional Expression, Reference Values, Neurosciences, Brain Damage, and Functional Laterality
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A Picture Story Test for eliciting narrative speech was administered to five patients in each of the subgroups of Broca's and Wernicke's aphasic subjects and matched controls. While Wernicke's subjects and normal-speaking... more
A Picture Story Test for eliciting narrative speech was administered to five patients in each of the subgroups of Broca's and Wernicke's aphasic subjects and matched controls. While Wernicke's subjects and normal-speaking subjects did not differ significantly in total output, the proportion of significant target lexemes was four times as great for normal-speaking subjects as for Wernicke's aphasic subjects. Broca's aphasic subjects, in spite of their telegraphic output, also had a smaller proportion of target lexemes than normal speakers. The proportion of nouns to verbs was elevated in the speech of Broca's aphasic subjects and depressed in the speech of Wernicke's aphasic subjects. Grammatical complexity was reduced in Wernicke's aphasic subjects, who used simple concatenation much more often than normal-speaking subjects. The Picture Story Test is suggested as a clinically useful technique.
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This study explored effects of the metabolic syndrome (MetS) on language in aging. MetS is a constellation of five vascular and metabolic risk factors associated with the development of chronic diseases and increased risk of mortality, as... more
This study explored effects of the metabolic syndrome (MetS) on language in aging. MetS is a constellation of five vascular and metabolic risk factors associated with the development of chronic diseases and increased risk of mortality, as well as brain and cognitive impairments. We tested 281 English-speaking older adults aged 55–84, free of stroke and dementia. Presence of MetS was based on the harmonized criteria (Alberti et al., 2009). Language performance was assessed by measures of accuracy and reaction time on two tasks of lexical retrieval and two tasks of sentence processing. Regression analyses, adjusted for age, education, gender, diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease, demonstrated that participants with MetS had significantly lower accuracy on measures of lexical retrieval (action naming) and sentence processing (embedded sentences, both subject and object relative clauses). Reaction time was slightly faster on the test of embedded sentences among those with MetS. Met...
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognition, Aging, Health, Medicine, and 15 moreLanguage disorders, Metabolic syndrome, Humans, Metabolic diseases, Reaction Time, Risk factors, Accuracy, Aged, Middle Aged, Risk Factors, Sentence, Logistic Models, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, Medical and Health Sciences, and Language tests
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We conducted multivariate random-effect analyses on longitudinal data from 238 adults, ranging in age from 30 to 94, who were tested on five lexical tests over a period of 20 years to examine (a) the relations between lemma and lexeme... more
We conducted multivariate random-effect analyses on longitudinal data from 238 adults, ranging in age from 30 to 94, who were tested on five lexical tests over a period of 20 years to examine (a) the relations between lemma and lexeme retrieval as manifested in different tests of lexical retrieval and (b) changes in lexical processing during older adulthood. This study documents differing profiles of age-related decline in lexical retrieval determined by task demand, gender, education, and underlying cognitive skills. The tasks that required retrieval of unique lexical items (Boston Naming Test and Action Naming Test) yielded significant age-related decline that became more rapid in older age, distinguishing them from tasks that allowed for the retrieval of various lexical items. Findings support a cascaded progression of lemma and lexeme retrieval during word production.
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Research Interests: Psychology, Education, Psycholinguistics, Reading Comprehension, Linguistics, and 14 moreYoung Adults, Comprehension, Noun Phrase, Nouns, Language Culture and Communication, Accuracy, Short Term Memory, Sentence, Phrase Structure, Applied Statistics Regression Analysis, Reading Process, Hyphenation, Reading Rate, and Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
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... B. Michael, Philip Moore, Loraine K. Obler, Petra Scheck, Teresa M. Signorelli and Thomas S. Pamela Blumenthal, Thomas W. Britt, Jason A. Cohen, James McCubbin, Nathan Maxfield, Erica Stress effects on bilingual language... more
... B. Michael, Philip Moore, Loraine K. Obler, Petra Scheck, Teresa M. Signorelli and Thomas S. Pamela Blumenthal, Thomas W. Britt, Jason A. Cohen, James McCubbin, Nathan Maxfield, Erica Stress effects on bilingual language professionals' performance Published by: ...
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... Von Mundy's (1959) report of the case of JP illustrates this rule: JP was born and raised in Slovenian-speaking villages until he was recruited for military service in the German-Austrian infantry, where he learned German.... more
... Von Mundy's (1959) report of the case of JP illustrates this rule: JP was born and raised in Slovenian-speaking villages until he was recruited for military service in the German-Austrian infantry, where he learned German. After ...
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Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Semantics, Aging, Medicine, and 13 moreMemory, Humans, Form perception, Female, Male, Cortex, Lexical retrieval, Noun, Aged, Middle Aged, Adult, Neurosciences, and Language tests
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Research Interests: Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Aging, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Language, Anisotropy, and 15 moreDiffusion MRI, Brain Mapping, Brain, Humans, Correlation, Female, Male, Aged, Fractional Anisotropy, Left Hemisphere, Frontal Lobe, Diagnostic Tests, Functional Laterality, Magnetic resonance image, and Language tests
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The primary purpose of this study was to examine the perception of lexical/verbal emotion across the adult life span. Secondary goals were to examine the contribution of gender and valence (i.e., pleasantness/unpleasantness) to the... more
The primary purpose of this study was to examine the perception of lexical/verbal emotion across the adult life span. Secondary goals were to examine the contribution of gender and valence (i.e., pleasantness/unpleasantness) to the processing of lexical emotional stimuli. Participants were 28 young (ages 20-39), 28 middle-aged (ages 40-59), and 28 older (ages 60-85) right-handed adults; there were 14 men and 14 women in each age group. Age groups were comparable on demographic and cognitive variables. Participants made accuracy judgments and intensity ratings of emotional (both positive and negative) and nonemotional stimuli from lexical perception tasks from the New York Emotion Battery (Borod, Welkowitz, & Obler, 1992). Accuracy and intensity measures were not significantly correlated. When age was examined, older participants perceived emotional and nonemotional lexical stimuli with significantly less accuracy than did younger and middle-aged participants. On the other hand, older participants evaluated the nonemotional lexical stimuli as significantly more intense than younger participants. When gender was examined, lexical stimuli were processed more accurately by female than male participants. Further, emotional stimuli were rated more intense by female participants. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
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Few studies have examined verb naming in normal aging, although decline in the ability to name nouns has been well documented. In this study, we examined longitudinal performance on the Action Naming Test (ANT), a confrontation naming... more
Few studies have examined verb naming in normal aging, although decline in the ability to name nouns has been well documented. In this study, we examined longitudinal performance on the Action Naming Test (ANT), a confrontation naming test for verbs. The purpose of this study was to confirm the verb naming deficit associated with aging, which was previously seen only in cross-sectional studies, and to provide additional normative data on verb naming ability that may prove useful to studies on verb naming in populations with brain dysfunction. Sixty-six healthy men and women aged 30 to 79 were each tested with the ANT 3 times over a 7-year span. ANT performance showed a significant decline over time for all participants except the youngest group. Longitudinal methodology supports the conclusion that this finding of a decline in verb naming ability arises from true age-related changes and not from cohort differences.
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... Wernicke's aphasia Debra A. Wiener Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USALisa Tabor Connor Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA Loraine K. Obler ... We thank Dr Errol Baker and Dr Avron... more
... Wernicke's aphasia Debra A. Wiener Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USALisa Tabor Connor Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, USA Loraine K. Obler ... We thank Dr Errol Baker and Dr Avron Spiro III for their statistical guidance. ...
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... 2, NO. 2, 161-173 Clinical Forum The relation of aphasia to dementia RHODA AU, MARTIN L. ALBERT and LORAINE K. OBLER Department of Neurology, Aphasia Research Center, Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Veterans... more
... 2, NO. 2, 161-173 Clinical Forum The relation of aphasia to dementia RHODA AU, MARTIN L. ALBERT and LORAINE K. OBLER Department of Neurology, Aphasia Research Center, Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Veterans Administration Hospital ...
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ABSTRACT Agrammatism — the aphasic deficit defined by omission of grammatical functors — has interested neurosdentists from the beginning of modern aphasiology because of the window it promises to provide on how syntax is stored in and... more
ABSTRACT Agrammatism — the aphasic deficit defined by omission of grammatical functors — has interested neurosdentists from the beginning of modern aphasiology because of the window it promises to provide on how syntax is stored in and produced by the brain.The bulk of research has been in Indo-European languages; extremely few articles have looked at agrammatism in structurally different languages. In the context of the Cross-Language Agrammatism Study (CLAS) we coordinated researchers have collected comparable data across 14 languages in order to begin to sort out universals and language-specific effects on agrammatism. Such data will eventually enable us to evaluate the competing theoretical explanations of agrammatism. All levels from phonologic through morpho/syntactic, semantic, lexical to pragmatic have been nominated, and we review here the arguments for each as well as whether indeed the deficit is primarily linguistic at all. If not, then, it could be viewed as a surface deficit secondary to other cognitive or motoric deficits. Relatively orthogonal to these discussions is the unresolved controversy as to whether agrammatism is a deficit of competence or performance. Strong markedness is not predictive of agrammatic errors, but hierarchies of spared and impaired morphemes may eventually be extracted. “Standard” lesions do not crucially underlie agrammatism.
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First language attrition occurs when a bilingual’s native language shows evidence of language change due to the predominant use of a second language. Recent research in first language attrition has shown that lexical retrieval and word... more
First language attrition occurs when a bilingual’s native language shows evidence of language change due to the predominant use of a second language. Recent research in first language attrition has shown that lexical retrieval and word choice are more vulnerable to reduced native language use than are grammatical constructions. However, some research has shown that grammar can also be affected, especially for constructions which exist in both languages but have different distributions in their usage. Taking concepts from cognitive linguistics, we attempt to describe how this research may provide insight into how language construal from the second language can affect the stability of the construals that make up the native language.
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Recent studies suggest that multilinguals are at a slight advantage when it comes to aging as the more active use of certain brain areas responsible for language processing seems to confer a degree of protection against the negative... more
Recent studies suggest that multilinguals are at a slight advantage when it comes to aging as the more active use of certain brain areas responsible for language processing seems to confer a degree of protection against the negative effects of normal aging seen in monolinguals (e.g., Bialystok, Craik, Green, & Gollan, 2010). Moreover, there is literature suggesting that individuals who are cognitively more active show less cognitive decline with advancing age (e.g., Rowe & Kahn, 1997). Yet there is some mention of changes in crucial abilities among interpreters (Keiser, 2005) in their 60s and later. The question the AIIC Research Committee has been exploring as part of its Lifespan Project is how age-related changes in language abilities and the cognitive abilities underlying them are experienced by professional multilinguals – namely, conference interpreters. This article reports on the first set of data acquired through interviews with ten conference interpreters from four countries (five female and five male) who are members of AIIC, either fully retired or nearing retirement. Each of the participants was interviewed by two interviewers – AIIC Research Committee members, Barbara Moser-Mercer (Convener), Miriam Shlesinger, Ingrid Kurz, Minhua Liu and an outside consultant, Loraine Obler of the CUNY Graduate Center.
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The question of interest in this study was whether bilingual individuals show superior executive control compared to monolingual participants. Findings are mixed, with studies showing advantage, disadvantage, or no difference between... more
The question of interest in this study was whether bilingual individuals show superior executive control compared to monolingual participants. Findings are mixed, with studies showing advantage, disadvantage, or no difference between bilingual and monolingual speakers. In this study, we used different experimental conditions to examine implicit learning, resistance to interference, monitoring, and switching, independently. In addition, we matched our monolingual and bilingual participants on baseline response time. Bilingual participants demonstrated faster implicit learning, greater resistance to interference, more efficient switching compared to monolingual participants. The groups did not differ in monitoring. In conclusion, depending on task complexity and on the target executive control component, there are different patterns of bilingual advantage, beyond the global faster processing speed documented in previous studies. Bilingual young adults showed more efficient adjustments...
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Among papers considering L2 performance, a subset take into account the length of residence (LOR) in the country where the L2 is spoken. In about half of these, LOR makes no difference for performance of at least one variable measured.... more
Among papers considering L2 performance, a subset take into account the length of residence (LOR) in the country where the L2 is spoken. In about half of these, LOR makes no difference for performance of at least one variable measured. Since those who reside in an L2 environment for many years tend to be older, the beneficial effects of longer LOR may at some point be counteracted by declines due to aging. This article draws on research in cognitive aging to consider how age could impact L2 performance. This is particularly important when investigating the effects of LOR or age of L2 acquisition since LOR, age of acquisition, and age at testing are linearly dependent variables, making conclusions based on any of these variables problematic. We argue that aging is a largely ignored confound in the literature on L2 attainment, particularly for studies that include older adults in their samples.
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This study examined the effects of executive control and working memory on older adults' sentence-final word recognition. The question we addressed was the importance of executive functions to this process and how it is modulated by... more
This study examined the effects of executive control and working memory on older adults' sentence-final word recognition. The question we addressed was the importance of executive functions to this process and how it is modulated by the predictability of the speech material. To this end, we tested 173 neurologically intact adult native English speakers aged 55-84 years. Participants were given a sentence-final word recognition test in which sentential context was manipulated and sentences were presented in different levels of babble, and multiple tests of executive functioning assessing inhibition, shifting, and efficient access to long-term memory, as well as working memory. Using a generalized linear mixed model, we found that better inhibition was associated with higher accuracy in word recognition, while increased age and greater hearing loss were associated with poorer performance. Findings are discussed in the framework of semantic control and are interpreted as supporting...
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A major debate exists in the neuropsychology community concerning whether case study is preferable to group study of brain-damaged patients. So far, the discussion has been limited to the advantages and disadvantages of both methods, with... more
A major debate exists in the neuropsychology community concerning whether case study is preferable to group study of brain-damaged patients. So far, the discussion has been limited to the advantages and disadvantages of both methods, with the assumption that neurolinguists pursue a single goal attainable by one or the other method. Practical considerations determine the substance and methodologies of research, and they often influence and constrain the questions asked, contrary to a popular myth that the research question comes first. A historical review of case and group studies and their contributions to the development of neurolinguistics, and of some work in progress or recently completed, including some studies using a hybrid design, reveals a wide range of options between the pure case study and ideal large group study, with specific benefits found in each. There is a logical progression to the kinds of studies the behavioral scientist can do: first, a phenomenological study, ...
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Background/Study Context: Older adults show age-related decline in complex-sentence comprehension. This has been attributed to a decrease in cognitive abilities that may support language processing, such as working memory (e.g., Caplan,... more
Background/Study Context: Older adults show age-related decline in complex-sentence comprehension. This has been attributed to a decrease in cognitive abilities that may support language processing, such as working memory (e.g., Caplan, DeDe, Waters, & Michaud, 2011,Psychology and Aging, 26, 439-450). The authors examined whether older adults have difficulty comprehending semantically implausible sentences and whether specific executive functions contribute to their comprehension performance. Forty-two younger adults (aged 18-35) and 42 older adults (aged 55-75) were tested on two experimental tasks: a multiple negative comprehension task and an information processing battery. Both groups, older and younger adults, showed poorer performance for implausible sentences than for plausible sentences; however, no interaction was found between plausibility and age group. A regression analysis revealed that inhibition efficiency, as measured by a task that required resistance to proactive i...
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In the alexia literature it is assumed that educated normals do not make reading errors. When the possibility that they do is brought to their attention, however, normal adult readers can indeed notice and identify reading errors. They... more
In the alexia literature it is assumed that educated normals do not make reading errors. When the possibility that they do is brought to their attention, however, normal adult readers can indeed notice and identify reading errors. They find themselves retracing their steps when a word or word-string appears non-sensical. Two neurologically normal subjects collected 573 such ‘slips of the eye’ over the course of approximately one year. Errors were from newspapers and magazines; the subjects tore out the page with the target, circling it and writing the error. Errors were classified post-hoc into two major categories; about two-thirds were single word substitutions (e.g., “Adriatic” read as “Atlantic”), and the remainder consisted of heterogeneous errors, which were further subdivided. These data were not immediately comparable to those of brain-damaged patients because we looked at words in discourse context. However, for the single word substitution errors, with the exception of homonyms, there were no categories we found for these normals that have not been reported in brain-damaged patients. The data pattern suggests that normal adults employ an interactive approach in the task of silent reading. The variety and nature of the errors observed imply the availability and use of both top-down and bottom-up reading strategies.
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Geschwind and Galaburda (1985) proposed that delayed growth of posterior left hemisphere sites in male dyslexics are associated with markers of anomalous dominance (AD) and special cognitive talents. We found that talent in a female... more
Geschwind and Galaburda (1985) proposed that delayed growth of posterior left hemisphere sites in male dyslexics are associated with markers of anomalous dominance (AD) and special cognitive talents. We found that talent in a female population was related to the strength of nonright-handedness, and was elevated in right-handed individuals with histories of familial left-handedness. Subjects reporting a history of dyslexia tended to be musically talented. While immune disorders were not related to talent for the whole population, they did co-occur with talents in a group of 10 individuals reporting 7 or more AD markers.
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Page 282. Language changes in healthy aging and dementia Jennifer Sandson, Loraine K. Obler, and Martin L. Albert The ultimate goal of the study of language in healthy and abnormal aging is the maximization of communication potential. ...
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Multilingual have more than twice as many linguistic options as monolinguals. They can choose to speak any one of their languages—“language choice”—but they can also choose to code-switch (i.e., to mix words or phrases of one language... more
Multilingual have more than twice as many linguistic options as monolinguals. They can choose to speak any one of their languages—“language choice”—but they can also choose to code-switch (i.e., to mix words or phrases of one language into the other). For the healthy bilingual or multilingual speaker (hereafter we will use the term “bilingual” to encompass multilingual as well), decisions concerning language choice or code-switching are based on sophisticated linguistic and social rules (Grosjean, 1982). In dementia, a few studies have reported, these rules seem to break down.
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Three features of Hebrew distinguish it markedly from the Western languages. Two are strictly orthographic: the right-to-left direction of script that influences eye-scan direction, and the relative absence of vowels in most materials... more
Three features of Hebrew distinguish it markedly from the Western languages. Two are strictly orthographic: the right-to-left direction of script that influences eye-scan direction, and the relative absence of vowels in most materials read by modern Hebrew readers. As with Arabic, it is possible to consistently omit most vowels in writing because they are predictable via morphosyntactic rules in conjunction with semantic/syntactic context. That point leads us to the third distinctive feature involved in Hebrew reading, which is not a strictly orthographic feature. Vowel patterns are predictable in Semitic words read in context because they serve certain inflectional and semantic functions (Berman, 1978). I will focus on the latter two features of Hebrew orthography; the influences of reading-scan direction on brain-organization for language are discussed in Obler (in press).
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Publisher Summary This chapter describes language and brain dysfunction in dementia. Dementia is a broad term, encompassing a number of diseases which have in common the deterioration of various cognitive or intellectual abilities. As a... more
Publisher Summary This chapter describes language and brain dysfunction in dementia. Dementia is a broad term, encompassing a number of diseases which have in common the deterioration of various cognitive or intellectual abilities. As a rule the disabilities range from attentional and memory deficits to deterioration of visuospatial abilities and logical manipulations. Localization of brain damage in the dementias is not as clear-cut as it is in the aphasias. Yet, while the standard belief is that dementias result from diffuse lesions, unlike the focal lesions of stroke or tumor, in fact one must speak of brain regions relatively deteriorated and relatively spared by a dementing disease. Among those dementias which evidence predominantly subcortical lesions are such diseases as Parkinson's disease and progressive supranuclear palsy. The chapter reviews various dementias in terms of their localizing potential. An overview of cortical and subcortical dementias is presented. The chapter also considers the indications that basic capabilities, such as memory and attention, interact with language processes.
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Over the last decade, research on multilingualism has grown and has provided researchers with new insights into the mechanisms at work in the multilingual brain. While some studies of multilinguals have shown similar results to what has... more
Over the last decade, research on multilingualism has grown and has provided researchers with new insights into the mechanisms at work in the multilingual brain. While some studies of multilinguals have shown similar results to what has been seen in studies of bilinguals, certain unique properties of multilinguals are beginning to be noticed, particularly regarding early language representation, gray matter density, and speed of lexical retrieval. In addition, research on cognitive control, language switching, working memory, and certain consequences of multilingualism (advantages and disadvantages) are reviewed in terms of their effects on the brains of bilinguals and multilinguals. Although there is little agreement among papers concerning specific regions that are structurally different in monolinguals and multilinguals, publications do show differences. Similarly, there are studies reporting somewhat different regions called upon for processing a given language in multilinguals ...