title: Novel word acquisition in aphasia: Facing the word-referent ambiguity of natural language learning contexts.
abstract: Recent research suggests that some people with aphasia preserve some ability to learn novel words and to retain them in the long-term. However, this novel word learning ability has been studied only in the context of single word-picture pairings. We examined the ability of people with chronic aphasia to learn novel words using a paradigm that presents new word forms together with a limited set of different possible visual referents and requires the identification of the correct word-object associations on the basis of online feedback. We also studied the relationship between word learning ability and aphasia severity, word processing abilities, and verbal short-term memory (STM). We further examined the influence of gross lesion location on new word learning. The word learning task was first validated with a group of forty-five young adults. Fourteen participants with chronic aphasia were administered the task and underwent tests of immediate and long-term recognition memory at 1 week. Their performance was compared to that of a group of fourteen matched controls using growth curve analysis. The learning curve and recognition performance of the aphasia group was significantly below the matched control group, although above-chance recognition performance and case-by-case analyses indicated that some participants with aphasia had learned the correct word-referent mappings. Verbal STM but not word processing abilities predicted word learning ability after controlling for aphasia severity. Importantly, participants with lesions in the left frontal cortex performed significantly worse than participants with lesions that spared the left frontal region both during word learning and on the recognition tests. Our findings indicate that some people with aphasia can preserve the ability to learn a small novel lexicon in an ambiguous word-referent context. This learning and recognition memory ability was associated with verbal STM capacity, aphasia severity and the integrity of the left inferior frontal region.
authors.affiliation: Cognition and Brain Plasticity Group, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute - IDIBELL, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Peñaloza
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, Elkins Park, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mirman
authors.affiliation: Department of Logopedics, Abo Akademi University, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: Leena
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tuomiranta
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Eleanor M. Saffran Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA; Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: Annalisa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Benetello
authors.affiliation: Department of Logopedics, Abo Akademi University, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: Ida-Maria
authors.initials: IM
authors.lastname: Heikius
authors.affiliation: Department of Logopedics, Abo Akademi University, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: Sonja
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Järvinen
authors.affiliation: Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge (HUB), Rehabilitation Section, Campus Bellvitge, University of Barcelona, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Maria C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Majos
authors.affiliation: Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge (HUB), Neurology Section, Campus Bellvitge, University of Barcelona, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cardona
authors.affiliation: Hospital Universitari de Bellvitge (HUB), Neurology Section, Campus Bellvitge, University of Barcelona, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Montserrat
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Juncadella
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Abo Akademi University, Turku, Finland.
authors.forename: Matti
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Laine
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Eleanor M. Saffran Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Nadine
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.affiliation: Cognition and Brain Plasticity Group, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute - IDIBELL, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain; Department of Basic Psychology, Campus Bellvitge, University of Barcelona, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain; Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, ICREA, Barcelona, Spain. Electronic address: antoni.rodriguez@icrea.cat.
authors.forename: Antoni
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rodríguez-Fornells
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001037:Aphasia / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Aphasia; Inferior frontal regions; New word learning; Short-term memory