Sentence comprehension disorders in aphasia: The concept of chance performance revisited

Sentence comprehension disorders in aphasia: The concept of chance performance revisited. Burchert, F., Hanne, S., & Vasishth, S. Aphasiology, 2012.
abstract bibtex

Background: In behavioural tests of sentence comprehension in aphasia, correct and incorrect responses are often randomly distributed. Such a pattern of chance performance is a typical trait of Broca’s aphasia, but can be found in other aphasic syndromes as well. Many researchers have argued that chance behaviour is the result of a guessing strategy, which is adopted in the face of a syntactic breakdown in sentence processing. Aims: Capitalising on new evidence from recent studies investigating online sentence comprehension in aphasia using the visual world paradigm, the aim of this paper is to review the concept of chance performance as a reflection of a syntactic impairment in sentence processing and to re-examine the conventional interpretation of chance performance as a guessing behaviour. Main Contribution: Based on a review of recent evidence from visual world paradigm studies, we argue that the assumption of chance performance equalling guessing is not necessarily compatible with actual real-time parsing procedures in people with aphasia. We propose a reinterpretation of the concept of chance performance by assuming that there are two distinct processing mechanisms underlying sentence comprehension in aphasia. Correct responses are always the result of normal-like parsing mechanisms, even in those cases where the overall performance pattern is at chance. Incorrect responses, on the other hand, are the result of intermittent deficiencies of the parser. Hence the random guessing behaviour that persons with aphasia often display does not necessarily reflect a syntactic breakdown in sentence comprehension and a random selection between alternatives. Instead it should be regarded as a result of temporal deficient parsing procedures in otherwise normal-like comprehension routines. Conclusion: Our conclusion is that the consideration of behavioural offline data alone may not be sufficient to interpret a performance in language tests and subsequently draw theoretical conclusions about language impairments. Rather it is important to call on additional data from online studies that look at language processing in real time in order to gain a comprehensive picture about syntactic comprehension abilities of people with aphasia and possible underlying deficits.

@article{burchertetal2012,
  author = {Frank Burchert and Sandra Hanne and Shravan Vasishth},
  journal = {Aphasiology},
  title = {Sentence comprehension disorders in aphasia: {The} concept of chance performance revisited},
  year = {2012},
  abstract = {Background: In behavioural tests of sentence comprehension in aphasia, correct and
incorrect responses are often randomly distributed. Such a pattern of chance performance
is a typical trait of Broca’s aphasia, but can be found in other aphasic syndromes as well.
Many researchers have argued that chance behaviour is the result of a guessing strategy,
which is adopted in the face of a syntactic breakdown in sentence processing.
Aims: Capitalising on new evidence from recent studies investigating online sentence comprehension
in aphasia using the visual world paradigm, the aim of this paper is to review
the concept of chance performance as a reflection of a syntactic impairment in sentence
processing and to re-examine the conventional interpretation of chance performance as a
guessing behaviour.
Main Contribution: Based on a review of recent evidence from visual world paradigm
studies, we argue that the assumption of chance performance equalling guessing is not
necessarily compatible with actual real-time parsing procedures in people with aphasia.
We propose a reinterpretation of the concept of chance performance by assuming that
there are two distinct processing mechanisms underlying sentence comprehension in
aphasia. Correct responses are always the result of normal-like parsing mechanisms, even
in those cases where the overall performance pattern is at chance. Incorrect responses, on
the other hand, are the result of intermittent deficiencies of the parser. Hence the random
guessing behaviour that persons with aphasia often display does not necessarily reflect a
syntactic breakdown in sentence comprehension and a random selection between alternatives.
Instead it should be regarded as a result of temporal deficient parsing procedures
in otherwise normal-like comprehension routines.
Conclusion: Our conclusion is that the consideration of behavioural offline data alone
may not be sufficient to interpret a performance in language tests and subsequently draw
theoretical conclusions about language impairments. Rather it is important to call on
additional data from online studies that look at language processing in real time in order
to gain a comprehensive picture about syntactic comprehension abilities of people with
aphasia and possible underlying deficits.},
  pdf = {http://www.ling.uni-potsdam.de/~vasishth/pdfs/BurchertHanneVasishthAphasiology2013.pdf}
}

Downloads: 0

{"_id":"bArrPCwWQRZnrRmh2","bibbaseid":"burchert-hanne-vasishth-sentencecomprehensiondisordersinaphasiatheconceptofchanceperformancerevisited-2012","downloads":0,"creationDate":"2016-02-13T19:45:19.269Z","title":"Sentence comprehension disorders in aphasia: The concept of chance performance revisited","author_short":["Burchert, F.","Hanne, S.","Vasishth, S."],"year":2012,"bibtype":"article","biburl":"http://www.ling.uni-potsdam.de/~vasishth/vasishtharticles.bib","bibdata":{"bibtype":"article","type":"article","author":[{"firstnames":["Frank"],"propositions":[],"lastnames":["Burchert"],"suffixes":[]},{"firstnames":["Sandra"],"propositions":[],"lastnames":["Hanne"],"suffixes":[]},{"firstnames":["Shravan"],"propositions":[],"lastnames":["Vasishth"],"suffixes":[]}],"journal":"Aphasiology","title":"Sentence comprehension disorders in aphasia: The concept of chance performance revisited","year":"2012","abstract":"Background: In behavioural tests of sentence comprehension in aphasia, correct and incorrect responses are often randomly distributed. Such a pattern of chance performance is a typical trait of Broca’s aphasia, but can be found in other aphasic syndromes as well. Many researchers have argued that chance behaviour is the result of a guessing strategy, which is adopted in the face of a syntactic breakdown in sentence processing. Aims: Capitalising on new evidence from recent studies investigating online sentence comprehension in aphasia using the visual world paradigm, the aim of this paper is to review the concept of chance performance as a reflection of a syntactic impairment in sentence processing and to re-examine the conventional interpretation of chance performance as a guessing behaviour. Main Contribution: Based on a review of recent evidence from visual world paradigm studies, we argue that the assumption of chance performance equalling guessing is not necessarily compatible with actual real-time parsing procedures in people with aphasia. We propose a reinterpretation of the concept of chance performance by assuming that there are two distinct processing mechanisms underlying sentence comprehension in aphasia. Correct responses are always the result of normal-like parsing mechanisms, even in those cases where the overall performance pattern is at chance. Incorrect responses, on the other hand, are the result of intermittent deficiencies of the parser. Hence the random guessing behaviour that persons with aphasia often display does not necessarily reflect a syntactic breakdown in sentence comprehension and a random selection between alternatives. Instead it should be regarded as a result of temporal deficient parsing procedures in otherwise normal-like comprehension routines. Conclusion: Our conclusion is that the consideration of behavioural offline data alone may not be sufficient to interpret a performance in language tests and subsequently draw theoretical conclusions about language impairments. Rather it is important to call on additional data from online studies that look at language processing in real time in order to gain a comprehensive picture about syntactic comprehension abilities of people with aphasia and possible underlying deficits.","pdf":"http://www.ling.uni-potsdam.de/~vasishth/pdfs/BurchertHanneVasishthAphasiology2013.pdf","bibtex":"@article{burchertetal2012,\n author = {Frank Burchert and Sandra Hanne and Shravan Vasishth},\n journal = {Aphasiology},\n title = {Sentence comprehension disorders in aphasia: {The} concept of chance performance revisited},\n year = {2012},\n abstract = {Background: In behavioural tests of sentence comprehension in aphasia, correct and\nincorrect responses are often randomly distributed. Such a pattern of chance performance\nis a typical trait of Broca’s aphasia, but can be found in other aphasic syndromes as well.\nMany researchers have argued that chance behaviour is the result of a guessing strategy,\nwhich is adopted in the face of a syntactic breakdown in sentence processing.\nAims: Capitalising on new evidence from recent studies investigating online sentence comprehension\nin aphasia using the visual world paradigm, the aim of this paper is to review\nthe concept of chance performance as a reflection of a syntactic impairment in sentence\nprocessing and to re-examine the conventional interpretation of chance performance as a\nguessing behaviour.\nMain Contribution: Based on a review of recent evidence from visual world paradigm\nstudies, we argue that the assumption of chance performance equalling guessing is not\nnecessarily compatible with actual real-time parsing procedures in people with aphasia.\nWe propose a reinterpretation of the concept of chance performance by assuming that\nthere are two distinct processing mechanisms underlying sentence comprehension in\naphasia. Correct responses are always the result of normal-like parsing mechanisms, even\nin those cases where the overall performance pattern is at chance. Incorrect responses, on\nthe other hand, are the result of intermittent deficiencies of the parser. Hence the random\nguessing behaviour that persons with aphasia often display does not necessarily reflect a\nsyntactic breakdown in sentence comprehension and a random selection between alternatives.\nInstead it should be regarded as a result of temporal deficient parsing procedures\nin otherwise normal-like comprehension routines.\nConclusion: Our conclusion is that the consideration of behavioural offline data alone\nmay not be sufficient to interpret a performance in language tests and subsequently draw\ntheoretical conclusions about language impairments. Rather it is important to call on\nadditional data from online studies that look at language processing in real time in order\nto gain a comprehensive picture about syntactic comprehension abilities of people with\naphasia and possible underlying deficits.},\n pdf = {http://www.ling.uni-potsdam.de/~vasishth/pdfs/BurchertHanneVasishthAphasiology2013.pdf}\n}\n\n","author_short":["Burchert, F.","Hanne, S.","Vasishth, S."],"key":"burchertetal2012","id":"burchertetal2012","bibbaseid":"burchert-hanne-vasishth-sentencecomprehensiondisordersinaphasiatheconceptofchanceperformancerevisited-2012","role":"author","urls":{},"downloads":0},"search_terms":["sentence","comprehension","disorders","aphasia","concept","chance","performance","revisited","burchert","hanne","vasishth"],"keywords":[],"authorIDs":[],"dataSources":["EJMeGPuRJmwwPwBJi"]}