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Attentional shifting as a potential explanatory variable in aphasic anomia
Christina Sen1, JoAnn P Silkes2
1Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders, San Diego State University and University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, United States.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
|August 1, 2026
Summary
People with aphasia (PWA) exhibit impaired attentional shifting, impacting language processing. This study highlights attention shifting as a foundational cognitive process in aphasia, suggesting implications for language recovery and therapeutic interventions.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Psycholinguistics
- Neurolinguistics
Background:
- Aphasia, a language disorder post-brain injury, involves lexical access deficits.
- Aphasia is frequently accompanied by impairments in attention, working memory, and verbal short-term memory.
- Growing evidence links lexical access difficulties to domain-general cognitive processes like attention switching and processing speed.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate attentional shifting and processing speed in individuals with aphasia (PWA).
- To explore the relationship between attentional blink performance and lexical access deficits in PWA.
- To examine the role of domain-general cognitive functions in aphasic language impairment.
Main Methods:
- Employed an Attentional Blink paradigm using both linguistic (letters) and nonlinguistic (shapes) stimuli.
- Assessed attentional shifting and processing speed in 14 PWA and 18 age-matched controls.
- Included tasks to measure overall processing speed and verbal short-term memory capacity.
Main Results:
- PWA demonstrated significantly impaired attentional blink performance on the linguistic task compared to controls (p=0.01).
- PWA also exhibited significantly slower processing speeds (p<0.05).
- Exploratory analysis suggested a link between lexical access severity and attentional blink performance, moderated by verbal short-term memory.
Conclusions:
- Attentional shifting appears to be a fundamental cognitive process underlying language processing and impairment in aphasia.
- Further research is required to elucidate the specific role of processing speed.
- Future studies should clarify whether attention shifting deficits in aphasia are language-specific or extend to nonlinguistic domains.
