title: Structural Prediction in Aphasia: Evidence fromeither.
abstract: Young neurotypical adults engage in prediction during language comprehension (e.g., Altmann & Kamide, 1999; Staub & Clifton, 2006; Yoshida, Dickey & Sturt, 2013). The role of prediction in aphasic comprehension is less clear. Some evidence suggests that lexical prediction may be spared in aphasia (Dickey et al., 2014; Love & Webb, 1977; cf. Mack et al, 2013), and there is even indication that structural prediction may be spared in some people with aphasia (PWA; e.g. Hanne, Burchert, De Bleser, & Vashishth, 2015). The current self-paced reading experiment manipulated the presence ofeitherto examine structural prediction among PWA and a set of similar-aged neurotypical control participants. Consistent with intact structural prediction for both groups of participants, wheneitherpreceded a disjunction, reading times were faster on theorand second disjunct (cf. Staub & Clifton, 2006). For neurotypical controls, this effect of the presence vs. absence ofeithershrank reliably as more experimental items were encountered, whereas for PWA there was a non-significant trend for it to grow as more experimental items were encountered. These findings indicate that PWA and older neurotypical individuals can use a lexical cue to predict the structural form of upcoming material during comprehension, but that on-line adaptation to patterns in the local context may be different for the two groups.
authors.affiliation: University of Pittsburgh.
authors.forename: Tessa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Warren
authors.affiliation: VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System; University of Pittsburgh.
authors.forename: Michael Walsh
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Dickey
authors.affiliation: University of Pittsburgh.
authors.forename: Chia-Ming
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Lei
keywords: aging; aphasia; language comprehension; prediction; reading; sentence processing; syntax