The resolution of lexical ambiguity with reference to context in dementia of the Alzheimer's type

The present study investigated how a dementing illness such as Alzheimer's disease, might affect an individual's recourse to higher order contextual information in the access and integration of lexical material in on-line discourse comprehension. More specifically, the experiment investiga...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of language & communication disorders 1998-10, Vol.33 (4), p.393-412
Main Authors: Chenery, Helen J., Ingram, John C. L., Murdoch, Bruce E.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Alzheimer Disease - complications
Alzheimer Disease - psychology
Analysis of Variance
Biological and medical sciences
Case-Control Studies
Degenerative and inherited degenerative diseases of the nervous system. Leukodystrophies. Prion diseases
dementia
Female
Humans
Language Disorders - etiology
Language Tests
lexical ambiguity
Male
Medical sciences
Middle Aged
Neurology
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Summary:The present study investigated how a dementing illness such as Alzheimer's disease, might affect an individual's recourse to higher order contextual information in the access and integration of lexical material in on-line discourse comprehension. More specifically, the experiment investigated the priming of homophones in a discourse context, by use of a cross-modal lexical decision task, and compared the performances of a group of six subjects with mild to moderate dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT) with those of a matched control group. The subjects listened to 2-sentence paragraphs and performed a lexical decision on visually presented targets that followed ambiguous prime words (or homophones) at two inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs): 330 and 1000msec. When the target was a word, it was either an associate of the prime word, a probable inference suggested by the discourse, or an unrelated word. The control subjects primed both the discourse-appropriate and discourseinappropriate associate of the homophone at short (330msec) ISIs (but not an appropriate inference word), a finding which supports the exhaustive access model of ambiguity resolution. As the ISI was lengthened to 1000msec, however, the discourse-appropriate inference word was primed, and reflects the operation of attention-dependent integrative strategies. The subjects with DAT primed both appropriate associates and inference words at the short ISI. At ISI of 1000msec, the DAT subjects primed the appropriate associate and showed substantial inhibition priming of the inappropriate associate. These results point to disturbances in the selective automatic activation of lexical material, and in the conscious integration and elaboration of lexical material in ongoing discourse comprehension in persons with DAT.
ISSN:1368-2822
1460-6984
DOI:10.1080/136828298247703