Comprehension strategies determining reference in aphasia: a study of reflexivization

This study explored the comprehension of reference in aphasia as reflected in reflexivization. A total of 132 test sentences were used consisting of two basic syntactic frames varying in the minimal distance principle and in the type of cues available in the sentence (syntax, syntax and morphology, syntax and lexical, and syntax, morphology, and lexical) for determining pronominal reference. Fifteen patients, five Broca's, five Conduction, and five Wernicke's, were asked to point to the picture (of two) corresponding to the auditorily presented test sentence. Results indicated that aphasic patients as a whole comprehend reference; however, their performance varied depending on the nature of the cues available in the sentence. All groups were impaired when only syntactic cues were available and showed a significant decrement in performance when the test sentence violated the minimal distance principle. As additional cues other than syntactic structure were provided, performance level increased. All groups, including the Broca's aphasics, showed only slight improvement with the presence of morphological cues. Wernicke's aphasic's performance was particularly vulnerable when lexical cues were added to syntactic cues. These results suggest that evaluation of a patient's deficit in sentence comprehension requires analysis of those attributes of the sentence contributing to its overall semantic interpretation.