Although right hemisphere brain damage (RHD) typically does not cause aphasic language disorders, specific discourse comprehension impairments often follow RHD. These studies are proposed to investigate several possible mechanisms of discourse comprehension inadequacies in RHD adults. The approach has been guided by a current theoretical perspective on comprehension, the structure building framework. This framework emphasizes two comprehension mechanisms: suppression, which inhibits information that is inappropriate or irrelevant to a final interpretation; and enhancement, which heightens the activation of contextually-relevant meanings. The potential contribution of inefficient suppression and/or enhancement mechanisms to discourse comprehension impairment in RHD adults provides the impetus for this proposal. Much of the existing descriptive literature on discourse comprehension deficits can be interpreted from this perspective, and in-effective suppression could account for various observations about other aspects of communication behavior following RHD as well. Two studies are proposed to examine the efficiency of suppression and enhancement mechanisms after RHD. The first focuses on lexical ambiguity, using a speeded probe judgment task. Subjects will hear probe words at several points after a spoken context sentence, and judge whether each probe fits with the meaning of an ambiguous word in that sentence. The second study focuses on inference revision, using similar methods. Subjects will judge whether probes that represent (a) initial, eventually incompatible inferences or (b) revised inferences fit with the meaning of a prior context. Two comprehension tasks will be given to examine the influence of inefficient suppression and/or enhancement mechanisms on comprehension performance. Left hemisphere-damaged and nonneurologically impaired adults will form comparison groups. It is expected that RHD adults will suppress inappropriate meanings of lexical ambiguities and contextually-incompatible inferences less efficiently than non-brain-damaged control subjects. In addition, it is expected that these inefficiencies will contribute to predicting RHD adults' discourse comprehension performance, even after controlling for other important factors such as education and visual neglect.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01DC001820-03
Application #
2126869
Study Section
Sensory Disorders and Language Study Section (CMS)
Project Start
1993-09-01
Project End
1997-08-31
Budget Start
1995-09-01
Budget End
1996-08-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
1995
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Pittsburgh
Department
Miscellaneous
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
053785812
City
Pittsburgh
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
15213
Blake, Margaret Lehman; Tompkins, Connie A; Scharp, Victoria L et al. (2015) Contextual Constraint Treatment for coarse coding deficit in adults with right hemisphere brain damage: generalisation to narrative discourse comprehension. Neuropsychol Rehabil 25:15-52
Yang, Ying; Tompkins, Connie A; Meigh, Kimberly M et al. (2015) Voxel-Based Lesion Symptom Mapping of Coarse Coding and Suppression Deficits in Patients With Right Hemisphere Damage. Am J Speech Lang Pathol 24:S939-52
Tompkins, Connie A; Meigh, Kimberly; Scott, April Gibbs et al. (2009) Can high-level inferencing be predicted by Discourse Comprehension Test performance in adults with right hemisphere brain damage? Aphasiology 23:1016-1027
Lederer, Lisa Guttentag; Scott, April Gibbs; Tompkins, Connie A et al. (2009) Imageability effects on sentence judgement by right-brain-damaged adults. Aphasiology 23:1005-1015
Tompkins, Connie A; Scharp, Victoria L; Fassbinder, Wiltrud et al. (2008) A different story on ""Theory of Mind"" deficit in adults with right hemisphere brain damage. Aphasiology 22:42-61
Tompkins, Connie A; Fassbinder, Wiltrud; Scharp, Victoria L et al. (2008) Activation and maintenance of peripheral semantic features of unambiguous words after right hemisphere brain damage in adults. Aphasiology 22:119-138
Tompkins, Connie A; Scharp, Victoria L; Meigh, Kimberly M et al. (2008) Coarse coding and discourse comprehension in adults with right hemisphere brain damage. Aphasiology 22:204-223
Scharp, Victoria L; Tompkins, Connie A; Iverson, Jana M (2007) Gesture and aphasia: Helping hands? Aphasiology 21:717-725
Tompkins, Connie A; Fassbinder, Wiltrud; Lehman Blake, Margaret et al. (2004) Inference generation during text comprehension by adults with right hemisphere brain damage: activation failure versus multiple activation. J Speech Lang Hear Res 47:1380-95
Lehman-Blake, M T; Tompkins, C A (2001) Predictive inferencing in adults with right hemisphere brain damage. J Speech Lang Hear Res 44:639-54

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