ABSTRACT

Background

Slowed language production and comprehension in people with aphasia (PWA) is frequently cited as a characteristic of the disorder, even after full recovery. However, results supporting the existence of slowness are inconsistent and the mechanisms are unclear. Previous research has failed to determine the neurocognitive locus of the slowing and whether it is due to left hemisphere damage, general aging, or language-specific mechanisms. The goals of this study are: (1) to explore whether reduced processing speed is present and specific to the presence of aphasia or due to left-hemisphere damage more generally and (2) whether it is specific to the linguistic domain of cognition.

Results

The results of the mixed effects model revealed significant main effects for groups and domains, and no significant interactions among groups or between domains. The two brain-damaged groups exhibited significantly longer processing times across tasks compared to the NHC group. The processing speed of the PWA group was significantly longer than that of the LHD group across simple perceptual and more cognitively complex tasks. Groups were not significantly different on three nonlinguistic sensory-motor tasks.

Conclusions

Left-hemisphere damage-related slowing, as well as aphasia-additive slowing, was demonstrated as evidenced by significant differences between the two brain-damaged groups and between these two groups and the NHC group. Therefore, the observed slowing in the PWA group appears to be due to both brain-damage-related and aphasia-additive slowing. Domain-specificity was not observed as evidenced by significant slowing on both linguistic and nonlinguistic tasks in both brain-damaged groups compared to the performance of the NHCs.

中文翻译：

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年龄匹配的正常健康对照和左半球损伤个体的语言和非语言处理速度，伴有和不伴有失语症

摘要

背景

失语症 (PWA) 患者的语言产生和理解减慢经常被认为是该疾病的一个特征，即使在完全康复后也是如此。然而，支持缓慢存在的结果并不一致，机制也不清楚。以前的研究未能确定减慢的神经认知轨迹，以及它是否是由于左半球损伤、一般衰老或语言特定机制造成的。本研究的目标是：（1）探索处理速度降低是否存在以及是否特定于失语症的存在或更普遍地由于左半球损伤以及（2）它是否特定于认知的语言领域。

结果

混合效应模型的结果表明，组和域的主效应显着，组之间或域之间没有显着的交互作用。与 NHC 组相比，两个脑损伤组的任务处理时间明显更长。在简单的感知和更复杂的认知任务中，PWA 组的处理速度明显长于 LHD 组。组在三个非语言感觉运动任务上没有显着差异。

结论

两个脑损伤组之间以及这两组与 NHC 组之间的显着差异证明了左半球损伤相关的减慢以及失语加性减慢。因此，在 PWA 组中观察到的减慢似乎是由于脑损伤相关和失语加性减慢所致。与 NHC 的表现相比，两个脑损伤组的语言和非语言任务均显着放缓，没有观察到领域特异性。