TY - JOUR
T1 - Processing of syntactically complex sentences relies on verbal short-term memory
T2 - Evidence from a short-term memory patient
AU - Papagno, Costanza
AU - Cecchetto, Carlo
AU - Reati, Fabiola
AU - Bello, Lorenzo
PY - 2007/5
Y1 - 2007/5
N2 - The role of the phonological loop in auditory sentence comprehension was examined in a 35-year-old woman with a selective deficit of verbal short-term memory (STM). More specifically, the objective of the experiment was to test whether sentence comprehension is limited by number of propositions, as suggested by Rochon, Waters, and Caplan (2000), or whether it depends on syntactic complexity. In an offline task, severe impairment was present on cleft objects and centre-embedded structures; the deficit on object relatives in right peripheral position was less relevant, and the patient was able to handle sentential coordination easily. In an online task, her processing of centre-embedded structures and object relatives in right peripheral position was significantly slower than that in controls. She was also significantly slower in processing the verb of the object relative in centre-embedded structures. The results obtained do not support the claim that the difficulties encountered by patients with limited working-memory resources are due to the number of propositions in the sentence; they do, however, suggest a direct involvement of the phonological loop in processing syntactically complex sentences.
AB - The role of the phonological loop in auditory sentence comprehension was examined in a 35-year-old woman with a selective deficit of verbal short-term memory (STM). More specifically, the objective of the experiment was to test whether sentence comprehension is limited by number of propositions, as suggested by Rochon, Waters, and Caplan (2000), or whether it depends on syntactic complexity. In an offline task, severe impairment was present on cleft objects and centre-embedded structures; the deficit on object relatives in right peripheral position was less relevant, and the patient was able to handle sentential coordination easily. In an online task, her processing of centre-embedded structures and object relatives in right peripheral position was significantly slower than that in controls. She was also significantly slower in processing the verb of the object relative in centre-embedded structures. The results obtained do not support the claim that the difficulties encountered by patients with limited working-memory resources are due to the number of propositions in the sentence; they do, however, suggest a direct involvement of the phonological loop in processing syntactically complex sentences.
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U2 - 10.1080/02643290701211928
DO - 10.1080/02643290701211928
M3 - Article
C2 - 18416493
AN - SCOPUS:34247893778
VL - 24
SP - 292
EP - 311
JO - Cognitive Neuropsychology
JF - Cognitive Neuropsychology
SN - 0264-3294
IS - 3
ER -