TY - JOUR
T1 - Syntactic and thematic components of sentence processing in progressive nonfluent aphasia and nonaphasic frontotemporal dementia
AU - Peelle, Jonathan E.
AU - Cooke, Ayanna
AU - Moore, Peachie
AU - Vesely, Luisa
AU - Grossman, Murray
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by National Institutes of Health (DC00237, AG17586, NS35867, and AG15116).
PY - 2007/11
Y1 - 2007/11
N2 - We used an online word-monitoring paradigm to examine sentence processing in healthy seniors and frontotemporal dementia patients with progressive nonfluent aphasia (PNFA) or a nonaphasic disorder of social and executive functioning (SOC/EXEC). Healthy seniors were sensitive to morphosyntactic, major grammatical subcategory, and selection restriction violations in a sentence. PNFA patients were insensitive to grammatical errors, but showed reasonable sensitivity to thematic matrix violations, consistent with a differential grammatical processing impairment. By contrast, SOC/EXEC patients showed partial sensitivity to grammatical errors but were insensitive to thematic violations. These findings support a dissociation between grammatical and thematic components of sentence processing. Specifically, they are consistent with a grammatical processing deficit in PNFA patients, and impairment in the formation of a coherent thematic matrix in SOC/EXEC patients.
AB - We used an online word-monitoring paradigm to examine sentence processing in healthy seniors and frontotemporal dementia patients with progressive nonfluent aphasia (PNFA) or a nonaphasic disorder of social and executive functioning (SOC/EXEC). Healthy seniors were sensitive to morphosyntactic, major grammatical subcategory, and selection restriction violations in a sentence. PNFA patients were insensitive to grammatical errors, but showed reasonable sensitivity to thematic matrix violations, consistent with a differential grammatical processing impairment. By contrast, SOC/EXEC patients showed partial sensitivity to grammatical errors but were insensitive to thematic violations. These findings support a dissociation between grammatical and thematic components of sentence processing. Specifically, they are consistent with a grammatical processing deficit in PNFA patients, and impairment in the formation of a coherent thematic matrix in SOC/EXEC patients.
KW - Frontotemporal dementia
KW - Grammar
KW - Progressive aphasia
KW - Sentence comprehension
KW - Syntax
KW - Thematic matrix
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=34948878601&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jneuroling.2007.04.002
DO - 10.1016/j.jneuroling.2007.04.002
M3 - Article
C2 - 18978927
AN - SCOPUS:34948878601
SN - 0911-6044
VL - 20
SP - 482
EP - 494
JO - Journal of Neurolinguistics
JF - Journal of Neurolinguistics
IS - 6
ER -