The Effects of Semantic Constraint and Cloze Probability in Left and Right Hemisphere Damaged Individuals

Event Abstract Back to Event The Effects of Semantic Constraint and Cloze Probability in Left and Right Hemisphere Damaged Individuals Chia-Ju Chou1, Chih-Ting Chang1, Hsin-Chi Wu2, 3 and Chia-Ying Lee1, 4* 1 National Yang-Ming University, Institute of Neuroscience, Taiwan 2 Taipei Tzu Chi General Hospital, Department of Rehabilitation, Taiwan 3 Tzu Chi University, School of Medicine, Taiwan 4 Academia Sinica, Institute of Linguistics, Taiwan Introduction: Previous studies using visual half-field presentation technique have suggested that the left hemisphere (LH) makes effectively use of the contextual information to predict the upcoming words, while the right hemisphere (RH) processes words in a more integrative fashion (Wlotko & Federmeier, 2013). Further evidences from brain damaged patients have revealed that right-hemisphere-damaged (RHD) patients have difficulties in integrating contextually inappropriate meaning and may instead show LH-driven processes to support comprehension (Grindrod & Baum, 2003; Johns, Tooley, & Traxler, 2008). This event-related potentials study aimed to investigate the nature of two hemispheres in processing semantic constraint of Chinese classifier-noun agreement, which was defined as the number of words that can be paired with a specific Chinese classifier. The strength of semantic constraint (strong and weak) and cloze probability of the pairing noun (high, low, implausible) were manipulated. To compare the data from patients with left-hemisphere-damage (LHD), RHD, and neurologically intact age-matched controls allow us to examine the hemispheric processing of the contextual constraint and the cloze probability to target words. Method and Results: Three groups of participants were tested: LHD patients (N=7), RHD patients (N = 7), and healthy aged- matched controls (N = 7). All participants were screened for language impairment by using the Chinese Concise Aphasia Test (CCAT). The three groups were matched with their scores on the comprehension subtest of the CCAT, (LHD: 11.54; RHD: 11.93; control: 11.91). Participants were required to read a classifier first and then a paring noun on the center of screen and then to perform three-point acceptability rating for the classifier-noun pair. Analyses focused on the N400 component (250-600ms) elicited by the pairing nouns. The control group showed a typical cloze probability effect on N400 under the strongly constrained condition, but the effect was much reduced under the weakly constrained condition. For RHD patients, no constraint effect was found and both unexpected nouns (low cloze and implausible nouns) elicited greater N400s than expected nouns did, no matter for strongly or weakly constraining conditions. For LHD aphasic patients, there was a significant constraint effect, and the implausible nouns elicited enhanced N400s under both strongly and weakly constraining condition. However, the difference between high cloze and low cloze nouns was not survived under strongly constraining conditions and it was much reduced compared to that in RHD group. Conclusion: While all groups performed equally well on the behavioral measures for reading comprehension, LHD and RHD showed different patterns of constraint and cloze probability effects on N400. RHD patients showed the ability to form the “best” completion for both strongly and weakly constraining classifier but lose the flexibility to accommodate the unexpected but plausible nouns. As for LHD patients, the robust constraint effect implies that the intact RH was able to activate and maintain all possible completions. Therefore, no matter for strongly or weakly constraining conditions, the cloze probability effects were much reduced than those in RHD patients. Our results support that the LH and RH contributed to language comprehension processes in different processing modes. Figure 1 References Grindrod, C. M., & Baum, S. R. (2003). Sensitivity to local sentence context information in lexical ambiguity resolution: Evidence from left- and right-hemisphere-damaged individuals. Brain Lang, 85(3), 503-523. Johns, C. L., Tooley, K. M., & Traxler, M. J. (2008). Discourse impairments following right hemisphere brain damage: A critical review. Language and linguistics compass, 2(6), 1038-1062. Wlotko, E. W., & Federmeier, K. D. (2013). Two sides of meaning: the scalp-recorded N400 reflects distinct contributions from the cerebral hemispheres. Front Psychol, 4. Keywords: Aphasia, RHD, constraint, Cloze probability, ERP Conference: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting, Llandudno, United Kingdom, 16 Oct - 18 Oct, 2016. Presentation Type: Poster Sessions Topic: Academy of Aphasia Citation: Chou C, Chang C, Wu H and Lee C (2016). The Effects of Semantic Constraint and Cloze Probability in Left and Right Hemisphere Damaged Individuals. Front. Psychol. Conference Abstract: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2016.68.00051 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 29 Apr 2016; Published Online: 15 Aug 2016. * Correspondence: Prof. Chia-Ying Lee, Academia Sinica, Institute of Linguistics, Taipei, Taiwan, chiaying@gate.sinica.edu.tw Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. 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