Purpose: ParAlg (Paraphasia Algorithms) is a software that automatically categorizes a person with aphasia's naming error (paraphasia) in relation to its intended target on a picture-naming test. These classifications (based on lexicality as well as semantic, phonological, and morphological similarity to the target) are important for…

The study of homophones--words with different meanings that sound the same--has great potential to inform models of language production. Of particular relevance is a phenomenon termed "frequency" inheritance, where a low-frequency word (e.g., "deer") is produced more fluently than would be expected based on its frequency…

Anomia is one of the most frequent manifestations in aphasia. Model-based treatments for anomia usually focus on semantic and/or phonological levels of processing. This study reports treatment of anomia in an individual with chronic aphasia. After baseline testing, she received a training program in which semantic and phonological treatments were…

Producing a sentence involves encoding a preverbal message into a grammatical structure by retrieving lexical items and integrating them into a functional (semantic-to-grammatical) structure. Individuals with agrammatism are impaired in this grammatical encoding process. However, it is unclear what aspect of grammatical encoding is impaired and…

Agrammatic aphasic individuals exhibit marked production deficits for tense morphology. This paper presents three experiments examining whether a group of English-speaking agrammatic individuals (n = 10) exhibit parallel deficits in their comprehension of tense. Results from two comprehension experiments (on-line grammaticality judgment studies)…

This paper investigates the cognitive processes underlying picture naming and auditory word repetition. In the two-step model of lexical access, both the semantic and phonological steps are involved in naming, but the former has no role in repetition. Assuming recognition of the to-be-repeated word, repetition could consist of retrieving the…

Semantically reversible sentences are prone to misinterpretation and take longer for typically developing children and adults to comprehend; they are also particularly problematic for those with language difficulties such as aphasia or Specific Language Impairment. In our study, we used fMRI to compare the processing of semantically reversible and…

Within a discrete two-stage model of lexicalization, semantic errors and errors of omission are assumed to be independent events. In contrast, cascading and interactive models allow for an influence of word form on lexical selection and thus for an inherent relationship in accounting for both error types. A group of 17 aphasic patients was…

Many facts about aphasic and nonaphasic naming are explained by models that use spreading activation to map from the semantics of a word to its phonology. The implemented model of picture naming discussed here achieves this by coupling interactive feedback with two selection steps. The model's structure and default parameters were set up to match…

Different models of spoken word production make different predictions regarding the extent of effects of certain word properties on the output of that model. This article examines these predictions with regard to the effect of these variables on the production of semantic and phonological errors by aphasic subjects. (60 references) (Author/CK)