Temporal processing and context dependency of phoneme discrimination in patients with aphasia

• Published in: Brain and language Vol. 98; no. 1; pp. 1 - 11
• Main Authors: Fink, Martina, Churan, Jan, Wittmann, Marc
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: San Diego, CA Elsevier Inc 01.07.2006; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Adults; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Aphasia; Aphasia - physiopathology; Auditory Discrimination; Auditory Perception - physiology; Auditory Processing; Biological and medical sciences; Brain Hemisphere Functions; Case-Control Studies; Comprehension - physiology; Context Effects; Discrimination (Psychology) - physiology; Disorders of higher nervous function. Focal brain diseases. Central vestibular syndrome and deafness. Brain stem syndromes; Feedback; Female; Humans; Language; Language and communication disorders; Language comprehension; Language Processing; Male; Measures; Medical sciences; Middle Aged; Multivariate Analysis; Nervous system (semeiology, syndromes); Neurology; Organic mental disorders. Neuropsychology; Patients; Phoneme discrimination; Phonemes; Phonological Processing; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Speech Communication; Speech Perception; Temporal-order threshold; Thresholds; Time; Time Factors; Phoneme discrimination; Aphasia; Language comprehension; Auditory processing; Temporal-order threshold; Context; Human; Nervous system diseases; Verbal comprehension; Cognition; Language disorder; Cerebral disorder; Time perception; Communication disorder; Hearing; Discrimination; Language; Central nervous system disease; Information processing; Perception; Neurological disorder; Phoneme
• ISSN: 0093-934X; 1090-2155
• DOI: 10.1016/j.bandl.2005.12.005

Standard diagnostic procedures for assessing temporal-processing abilities of adult patients with aphasia have so far not been developed. In our study, temporal-order measurements were conducted using two different experimental procedures to identify a suitable measure for clinical studies. Additionally, phoneme-discrimination abilities were tested on the word, as well as on the sentence level, as a relationship between temporal processing and phoneme-discrimination abilities is assumed. Patients with aphasia displayed significantly higher temporal-order thresholds than control subjects. The detection of an association between temporal processing and speech processing, however, depended on the stimuli and the phoneme-discrimination tasks used. Our results also suggest top–down feedback on phonemic processing.