The goal of the proposed studies is to investigate lexical-pragmatic influences on sentence processing in aphasic patients, with the eventual goal of developing a coherent model of sentence comprehension in aphasia that will provide a framework for the assessment and treatment of patients with disordered sentence comprehension.
The specific aims are: (1) To advance knowledge of how lexical-pragmatic information (e.g., verb subcategorization and plausibility) constrain sentence processing; and (2) To characterize changes in the function of such information associated with aphasia.
These aims will be addressed through studies of syntactic processing in which participants' on-line and off-line comprehension of garden path sentences will be examined under several conditions. This study will address the following hypotheses: (1) Relative to controls, aphasic patients will demonstrate reduced sensitivity to lexicalpragmatic information in measures of on-line sentence comprehension; and (2) Aphasic patients will benefit from lexical-pragmatic information in off-line measures of comprehension.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Type
Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award (F31)
Project #
1F31DC007564-01
Application #
6936766
Study Section
Communication Disorders Review Committee (CDRC)
Program Officer
Sklare, Dan
Project Start
2005-01-01
Project End
2007-12-31
Budget Start
2005-01-01
Budget End
2005-12-31
Support Year
1
Fiscal Year
2005
Total Cost
$26,730
Indirect Cost
Name
Boston University
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Allied Health Profes
DUNS #
049435266
City
Boston
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02215
DeDe, Gayle (2012) Lexical and prosodic effects on syntactic ambiguity resolution in aphasia. J Psycholinguist Res 41:387-408
Dede, Gayle (2010) Utilization of prosodic information in syntactic ambiguity resolution. J Psycholinguist Res 39:345-74