Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a degenerative disease affecting language while leaving other cognitive facilities relatively unscathed. The agrammatic subtype of PPA (PPA-G) is characterized by agrammatic language production with impaired comprehension of noncanonical filler-gap syntactic structures, such as object-relatives [e.g., The sandwich that the girl ate (gap) was tasty], in which the filler (the sandwich) is displaced from the object position within the relative clause to a position preceding both the verb and the agent (the girl) and is replaced by a gap linked with the filler. One hypothesis suggests that the observed deficits of these structures reflect impaired thematic integration, including impaired prediction of the thematic role of the filler and impaired thematic integration at the gap, but spared structure building (i.e., creation of the gap). In the current study, we examined the on-line comprehension of object-relative and subject-relative clauses in healthy controls and individuals with agrammatic and logopenic PPA using eye-tracking. Eye-movement patterns in canonical subject-relative clause structures were essentially spared in both PPA groups. In contrast, eye-movement patterns in noncanonical object-relative clauses revealed delayed thematic prediction in both agrammatic and logopenic PPA, on-time structure building (i.e., gap-filling) in both groups, and abnormal thematic integration in agrammatic, but not logopenic, PPA. We argue that these results are consistent with the hypothesis that agrammatic comprehension deficits reflect impaired thematic integration.

中文翻译：

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原发性进行性失语症的主题整合障碍：来自眼动追踪的证据


原发性进行性失语症（PPA）是一种影响语言的退行性疾病，但其他认知功能相对未受影响。 PPA 的语法错误亚型（PPA-G）的特点是语法错误的语言产生，对非规范填充间隙句法结构的理解受损，例如对象关系[例如，女孩吃的三明治（间隙）很美味]，其中填充物（三明治）从关系从句中的宾语位置移动到动词和施事者（女孩）之前的位置，并被与填充物相连的间隙所取代。一种假设表明，观察到的这些结构的缺陷反映了主题整合受损，包括对填充物的主题作用的预测受损和间隙处的主题整合受损，但幸免于结构构建（即间隙的产生）。在当前的研究中，我们使用眼动追踪检查了健康对照组和患有语法障碍和语词缺乏的 PPA 个体对宾语相关和主语相关子句的在线理解。在两个 PPA 组中，规范主语从句结构中的眼球运动模式基本上没有受到影响。相比之下，非规范宾语相关从句中的眼球运动模式揭示了语法不通和语词减少的 PPA 中主题预测的延迟、两组的准时结构构建（即间隙填充）以及语法不通但语词减少中的异常主题整合。 ，PPA。我们认为这些结果与语法理解缺陷反映了主题整合受损的假设是一致的。