Language II

1. Language II October 30, 2008

2. Speech/Language Production I • Common Features of Models • extensive pre-planning • distinct stages of processing • general (intended meaning)-to-specific (utterance) organization • most models use of speech errors as data

3. Spreading Activation Theory (Dell) • four levels of activity • Semantic (meaning) • Syntactic (grammatical structure of words in the planned sentence) • Morphological (basic units of meaning or word forms) • Phonological (sounds) • representation formed at each level • processing occurs simultaneously at all levels • uses speech errors as primary data

4. Spreading Activation (cont’d) • Lexicon: connectionist network containing nodes for concepts, words, morphemes, and phonemes • Insertion rules (which is highest activated?) determine items selected for insertion into sentences • Errors predicted by model: • Errors more likely when speaker has not formed a coherent speech plan • Errors should be from same category • Anticipation errors (because of multiple activations; “The sky is in the sky”) • Exchange errors (because once selected, items’ activation turns to zero (“I hit the bat with my ball”)

5. Speech Production II • Levelt/Bock approach • four stages: message, functional processing, positional processing, and phonological encoding • information about syntax (lemma) available before sound (lexeme) • consistent with TOT phenomenon

6. Bock & Levelt (1984) ERRORS Intended meaning Semantic substitution (“tennis bat”), blending (“sky is shining”), word-exchange errors (“let the bag out of the cat”) Selection of word concepts, grammatical construction Ordering parts of sentence, adding inflection Morpheme exchange errors (“trunked two packs”), spoonerisms (“hissed my mystery lectures”) within same clause Phonological and prosodic elements worked out

7. WEAVER++ (Word-Form Encoding by Activation and Verification)

8. Neuropsychological evidence of staged selection • Content-word retrieval vs. syntactic processing • Distinction between anomia (e.g., word selection difficulties) vs. agrammatism (inability to construct grammatically correct sentences) • Jargon aphasia: can construct grammatically correct sentences but not find correct words

9. Processes in Writing (Hayes & Flower, 1980) • Planning: generating info from LTM, organizing • Translating: producing language conforming in meaning to that retrieved in the planning stage • Reviewing: editing what is written

10. Deep Dysgraphia Phonological Dysgraphia

11. Language Disorders

12. Types of Disorders • Aphasia: acquired disorder of language due to brain damage • Dysarthria: disorder of motor apparatus of speech • Developmental language disturbances • Associated disorders • Alexia • Apraxia • Agraphia

13. Major Historical Landmarks • Broca (1861): Leborgne: loss of speech fluency with good comprehension • Wernicke (1874): Patient with fluent speech but poor comprehension • Lichtheim (1885): classic description of aphasic syndromes

14. C A M Lichtheim’s Model

15. Arcuate fasciculus

16. Contemporary anologues of Lichtheim’s (1885) Aphasic Syndromes

17. Additional Aphasia Syndromes

18. Broca’s Aphasia • Telegraphic, effortful speech • Agrammatism • Some degree of comprehension deficit • Writing and reading deficits • Repetition abnormal – drops function words • Buccofacial apraxia, right hemiparesis

19. M.E. Cinderella ... poor ... um 'dopted her ... scrubbed floor, um, tidy ... poor, um ... 'dopted ... Si-sisters and mother ... ball. Ball, prince um, shoe ... Examiner. Keep going. M.E. Scrubbed and uh washed and un...tidy, uh, sisters and mother, prince, no, prince, yes. Cinderella hooked prince. (Laughs.) Um, um, shoes, um, twelve o'clock ball, finished. Examiner. So what happened in the end? M.E. Married. Examiner. How does he find her? M.E. Um, Prince, um, happen to, um ... Prince, and Cinderalla meet, um met um met. Examiner. What happened at the ball? They didn't get married at the ball. M.E. No, um, no ... I don't know. Shoe, um found shoe ...

20. Wernicke’s Aphasia • Fluent, nonsensical speech • Impaired comprehension • Grammar better preserved than in BA • Reading impairment often present • May be aware or unaware of deficit • Finger agnosia, acalculia, alexia without agraphia

21. Wernicke description of “Cookie Theft Picture” C.B. Uh, well this is the ... the /dødøü/ of this. This and this and this and this. These things going in there like that. This is /sen/ things here. This one here, these two things here. And the other one here, back in this one, this one /gø/ look at this one. Examiner. Yeah, what's happening there? C.B. I can't tell you what that is, but I know what it is, but I don't now where it is. But I don't know what's under. I know it's you couldn't say it's ... I couldn't say what it is. I couldn't say what that is. This shu-- that should be right in here. That's very bad in there. Anyway, this one here, and that, and that's it. This is the getting in here and that's the getting around here, and that, and that's it. This is getting in here and that's the getting around here, this one and one with this one. And this one, and that's it, isn't it? I don't know what else you'd want.

22. Conduction Aphasia • Fluent language • Naming and repetition impaired • May be able to correct speech off-line • Hesitations and word-finding pauses • May have good reading skills

23. Global Aphasia • Deficits in repetition, naming, fluency and comprehension • Gradations of severity exist • May communicate prosodically • Involve (typically) large lesions • Outcome poorest; anomic

24. Transcortical Motor Good repetition Impairment in producing spontaneous speech Good comprehension Poor naming Transcortical Sensory Good repetition Fluent speech Impaired comprehension Poor naming Semantic associations poor Transcortical Aphasias

27. Associated Deficits • Alexia without Agraphia • Impairment in reading with spared writing • Apraxia • Loss of skilled movement not due to weakness or paralysis

30. Fundamental Lessons • Language processors are localized • Different language symptoms can be due to an underlying deficit in a single language processor • Language processors are regionally associated with different parts of the brain in proximity to sensory or motor functions

31. What Language Disorders Reveal about Underlying Processes • Pure Word Deafness: selective processing of speech sounds implies a specific speech-relevant phonological processor • Transcortical Sensory Aphasia: repetition is spared relative to comprehension; selective loss of word meaning; some cases suggest disproportionate loss of one or more categories

32. What Language Disorders Reveal about Underlying Processes • Aphasic errors in word production: reveal complex nature of lexical access • Phonological vs. semantic errors: independent vs. interactive relationship? • Grammatical class: nouns vs. verbs (category specificity) • Broca’s aphasia: syntax comprehension and production • Central syntactic deficit; loss of grammatic knowledge • Problems in “closed-class” vocabulary (preposition, tense markers) • Limited capacity account • Mapping account (inability to map from parsing to thematic roles) • Jargon Aphasia: can construct gramatically “better” sentences than agrammatics, but can’t find words, producing neologisms; reinforces distinction between content and grammatical struture

33. Prosody • Linguistic vs. nonlinguistic prosody • Evidence for hemispheric differences • Clinical syndromes • Disturbances of comprehension • Auditory affective agnosia • Phonagnosia • Disturbances of prosodic output • Aprosodias

34. Spontaneous Prosody Good Poor Ross & Monnot (2007) Brain and Language

35. Ross & Monnot (2007) Brain and Language

36. Aphasia and the Semantic System • Meaning stored separately from form • Models of representation in semantics • Feature-based models (see categorization) • Nondecompositional meaning • Modality-specific semantic deficits: optic aphasia as an example

37. Two Example Models of Semantic Organization One Semantic System Multiple Semantic Systems