title: Aphasic performance on a lexical decision task: multiple meanings and word frequency.
abstract: The lexical access of words varying in the number of meanings and frequency of occurrence was examined in fluent and nonfluent aphasic individuals and a control group of non-brain-damaged adults, using a lexical decision task. Fluent aphasic subjects performed similarly to nonfluent aphasic and normal subjects, showing that words with a high number of meanings and with a high frequency of occurrence were recognized as real words faster than words with few meanings or a low frequency of occurrence. While previous research has demonstrated that the number of meanings associated with a word exerts a powerful influence on the internal lexicon of normals, the results of this study suggest that brain damage resulting in aphasia does not disrupt this semantic organization.
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001037:Aphasia / Q000523:psychology*; D001039:Aphasia, Broca / Q000523:psychology*; D001041:Aphasia, Wernicke / Q000523:psychology*; D003657:Decision Making; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics