Redundancy enhances emotional inferencing by right- and left-hemisphere-damaged adults.

This study investigated the influence of enhanced textual redundancy on affective interpretations made by unilaterally right or left hemisphere brain-damaged adults and normally aging control subjects. Emotional interferences were drawn from linguistic or prosodic material, and redundancy effects were examined within and across stimulus boundaries. Results indicate that heightened semantic redundancy improved the accuracy of linguistic and prosodic judgements of affect for all groups. Correct prosodic judgements were also made more quickly by a subset of each group when textual redundancy was maximized. The facilitory influence of increased redundancy was not attributable solely to perseveration or response rigidity. Possible mechanisms by which semantic redundancy affects cognitive processing are considered.

[1]  M. McNeil,et al.  Accuracy and Response Times for Semantic Judgements and Lexical Decisions with Left- and Right-Hemisphere Lesions , 1987 .

[2]  R. Brookshire,et al.  Consistency of the effects of rate of speech on brain-damaged adults' comprehension of narrative discourse. , 1986, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[3]  R. Pierce,et al.  Effects of linguistic and extralinguistic context on semantic and syntactic processing in aphasia. , 1985, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[4]  Leah L. Light,et al.  Language, memory, and aging: Comprehension of pragmatic implications in young and older adults , 1988 .

[5]  Susan Sonnenschein,et al.  The development of referential communication skills: Some situations in which speakers give redundant messages , 1985 .

[6]  R. Pierce.  Linguistic Context and Aphasia Treatment , 1989 .

[7]  E. Kaplan,et al.  The assessment of aphasia and related disorders , 1972 .

[8]  C. Tompkins.  Knowledge and strategies for processing lexical metaphor after right or left hemisphere brain damage. , 1990, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[9]  Fergus I. M. Craik,et al.  Aging and Cognitive Deficits , 1982 .

[10]  M. McNeil,et al.  Toward an Integrative Information-Processing Structure of Auditory Comprehension and Processing in Adult Aphasia , 1986 .

[11]  E. Zelinski.  Language, memory, and aging: Integrating information from discourse: Do older adults show deficits? , 1988 .

[12]  Marcia K. Johnson,et al.  Contextual prerequisites for understanding: Some investigations of comprehension and recall , 1972 .

[13]  Joseph G. Saetveit,et al.  Seashore measures of musical talents. , 1956 .

[14]  L. Leonard,et al.  Aphasics' comprehension of contextually conveyed meaning , 1978, Brain and Language.

[15]  R. Pierce,et al.  Effects of thematic structure on syntactic comprehension in aphasia , 1986, Brain and Language.

[16]  R. Pierce,et al.  The role of context in facilitating syntactic decoding in aphasia. , 1985, Journal of communication disorders.

[17]  H. Goodglass,et al.  Phrase Length and the Type and Severity of Aphasia , 1964 .

[18]  C. Tompkins,et al.  Automatic and effortful processing of emotional intonation after right or left hemisphere brain damage. , 1991, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[19]  H. Gardner,et al.  Inference deficits in right brain-damaged patients , 1986, Brain and Language.

[20]  A Wingfield,et al.  Process and strategy in memory for speech among younger and older adults. , 1987, Psychology and aging.

[21]  J. J. Franks,et al.  Sentence comprehension processes , 1983 .

[22]  R. Brookshire,et al.  Comprehension of directly and indirectly stated main ideas and details in discourse by brain-damaged and non-brain-damaged listeners , 1984, Brain and Language.

[23]  M. Hough,et al.  Contextual influences in aphasia: Effects of predictive versus nonpredictive narratives , 1989, Brain and Language.

[24]  M. Ashcraft.  Human memory and cognition , 1989 .

[25]  F. Darley,et al.  Effect of prestimulation on sentence comprehension by aphasic subjects. , 1979, Journal of communication disorders.

[26]  Craig W. Linebaugh,et al.  Comprehension of Idiomatic Expressions by Right-Hemisphere-Damaged Adults , 1981 .

[27]  K. Poeck,et al.  Text comprehension in aphasia , 1977, Brain and Language.

[28]  W. Marslen-Wilson,et al.  The temporal structure of spoken language understanding , 1980, Cognition.

[29]  H. Gardner,et al.  Discourse Comprehension by Right-Hemisphere Stroke Patients: Deficits of Prediction and Revision , 1990 .

[30]  G. Cohen,et al.  Word recognition: age differences in contextual facilitation effects. , 1983, British journal of psychology.

[31]  A. Salasoo,et al.  Interaction of Knowledge Sources in Spoken Word Identification. , 1985, Journal of memory and language.

[32]  Gregory G. Brown,et al.  The problem of premorbid intelligence in neuropsychological assessment , 1979 .

[33]  G. Canter,et al.  The effect of redundant cues on comprehension of spoken messages by aphasic adults. , 1987, Journal of communication disorders.

[34]  Andrew Ortony,et al.  Interpreting Metaphors and Idioms: Some Effects of Context on Comprehension. Technical Report No. 93. , 1978 .

[35]  C. Mateer,et al.  Right hemisphere appreciation of prosodic and linguistic indications of implicit attitude , 1985, Brain and Language.

[36]  F. Darley,et al.  The influence of context on the auditory comprehension of paragraphs by aphasic subjects. , 1978, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[37]  Y. Joanette,et al.  Right Hemisphere and Verbal Communication , 1989 .

[38]  H. Gardner,et al.  Comprehending a Word: The Influence of Speed and Redundancy on Auditory Comprehension in Aphasia , 1975, Cortex.

[39]  C. Tompkins,et al.  Perception of emotional intonation by brain-damaged adults: the influence of task processing levels. , 1985, Journal of speech and hearing research.

[40]  R. Brookshire,et al.  Syntactic Simplification and Context: Effects on Sentence Comprehension by Aphasic Adults , 1983 .

[41]  Connie A. Tompkins,et al.  Contextual mood priming following left and right hemisphere damage , 1987, Brain and Cognition.

[42]  Fergus I. M. Craik,et al.  Aging and cognitive deficits : The role of attentional resources , 1982 .