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Inhibitory control, word retrieval and bilingual aphasia: is there a relationship?

Yasmeen Faroqi-Shah1*, Monica Sampson1, Susan Baughman1 and Mariah Pranger1
  • 1 University of Maryland, Hearing and Speech Sciences, United States

The cognitive processes underlying word production involve selecting a target lexical representation from numerous similar representations. Thus successful lexical selection during word retrieval should engage cognitive control to inhibit lexical competitors and the target word after selection. Word retrieval difficulty is a hallmark feature of aphasia. It is conceivable that inhibitory control has a greater impact on word retrieval in persons with aphasia (PWA) due to weakening of lexical representations and exaggerated/diminished inhibitory mechanisms following brain damage (McCarthy & Kartsounis, 2000; Wilshire & McCarthy, 2002). While there is evidence of an association between cognitive control and word production in neurologically healthy adults (e.g., Shao et al., 2013; Talek et al., 2010), this link has not been well investigated in PWA (but see Biegler et al., 2008). Additionally, bilingualism is widely considered to enhance inhibitory control in neurotypical adults (Bialystok et al., 2008; but see Hilchey & Klein, 2011 for a critical review; Green, 1998). Prior investigation of inhibitory advantages in four bilingual PWA has been inconclusive (Green et al., 2010; Penn et al. 2000) and does not address the link between inhibitory control and word retrieval in aphasia. This study examined two questions pertaining to inhibitory control in PWA: 1) if bilingual and monolingual PWA differ in inhibitory control, and 2) if inhibitory control is associated with word retrieval success in PWA. Linguistic and non-linguistic inhibitory control was examined. Methods Thirty-eight PWA participated in this study (20 fluent bilinguals who spoke English, 18 English speaking monolinguals, mean age=64.2 years, 11 female, all with left hemisphere stroke, mean years post-onset=6.05, matched in demographics and aphasia severity, all p>.05). Linguistic inhibitory control was measured with the Stroop color-word task (Stroop, 1935), which required responding to the font color of three color words (red, green, yellow) and a neutral word (plan). Non-linguistic inhibitory control was measured with either a spatial Stroop involving response to location of colored squares (Golden, 1978), or Flanker task involving response to direction of an arrow flanked by other arrows (Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974). All experimental tasks had three conditions: a neutral, congruent, and incongruent. By definition, incongruent trials entail inhibition of a potent response (hence slower response latencies) while congruent trials facilitate response latencies. The “Stroop effect” was calculated as difference in reaction times between incongruent or congruent and neutral conditions, and was correlated with two word retrieval measures of the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised (WAB-R, Kertesz, 2006): confrontation naming and category fluency. Results and Discussion Responses to incongruent trials were slower than congruent for linguistic (F(1,126.3)=44.9, p<.001) and nonlinguistic (F(1,96.6)=44.9, p<.001) inhibition; and response magnitude was comparable with neurotypical adults (Baughman, 2013; Sampson, 2014). There was no effect of bilingualism on “Stroop effect” (p>.05). While confrontation naming and category fluency were highly correlated (r=.77, p<.001), correlations between linguistic and non-linguistic inhibition and between word retrieval and linguistic/non-linguistic inhibition were non-significant. This large group study poses challenges to theories of bilingual advantage and the role of non-lexical inhibitory measures in word retrieval in PWA.

References

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Keywords: Aphasia, Bilingualism and Brain, Inhibitory Control, lexical access, Stroop effect

Conference: Academy of Aphasia -- 52nd Annual Meeting, Miami, FL, United States, 5 Oct - 7 Oct, 2014.

Presentation Type: Platform or poster presentation

Topic: Not student

Citation: Faroqi-Shah Y, Sampson M, Baughman S and Pranger M (2014). Inhibitory control, word retrieval and bilingual aphasia: is there a relationship?. Front. Psychol. Conference Abstract: Academy of Aphasia -- 52nd Annual Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2014.64.00049

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Received: 29 Apr 2014; Published Online: 04 Aug 2014.

* Correspondence: Dr. Yasmeen Faroqi-Shah, University of Maryland, Hearing and Speech Sciences, College Park, Maryland, 20742, United States, yfshah@umd.edu