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Conducting corpus-based analyses of linguistic, acoustic, and co-verbal performances in aphasia using the Cantonese AphasiaBank database

Anthony Pak Hin Kong1* and Sampo Law2
  • 1 University of Central Florida, United States
  • 2 University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, SAR China

Introduction Research in acquired language disorders has mainly employed methods of single case studies, case series, or participants in groups of small sizes. However, many clinical and/or research questions can only be answered with data from substantial numbers of patients, their performances across different language tasks, and responses to individual test items. Researchers have begun to recognize the importance of large databases. The Cantonese AphasiaBank project funded by the National Institutes of Health has enabled us to construct a CANtonese corpus of Oral Narratives (CANON) and a Database of Speech and GEsture (DoSaGE). These corpora consist of annotated orthographic and morphological information as well as romanization transcripts with corresponding video and/or audio files of 149 unimpaired native Cantonese speakers and 104 persons with aphasia (PWA). The elicitation protocol, which follows the AphasiaBank protocol (MacWhinney, Fromm, Forbes, & Holland, 2011) but with careful adaptation to the local Chinese culture, includes picture description, procedural discourse, story telling, and personal monologue. Moreover, language test results on PWA’s repetition, noun and verb naming, and (non)-verbal semantic skills are available. Methods Using the linguistic and prosodic data as well as videos with annotations of non-verbal behaviors extracted from the Cantonese AphasiaBank, a series of studies have examined issues specific to Cantonese aphasia. Results (a) Lexical processing. When age-of-acquisition, familiarity and imageability were balanced, PWA did not retrieve nouns better than verbs, and word retrieval performance was higher in picture naming than connected speech (Law, Kong, Lai, & Lai, 2015). (b) Discourse. PWA were disrupted at both the micro- (reduced information content and elaboration, simplified/impaired discourse structure; Kong, Law, Kwan, Lai, & Lam, 2015) and macro-linguistic (impaired cohesion and coherence; Kong, Linnik, Law, & Shum, 2014) levels. (c) Non-verbal behaviors. (i) PWA employed significantly more gestures than controls (Kong, Law, Wat, & Lai, 2015). Different patterns of using non-verbal behaviors were also observed between fluent and non-fluent PWA (Kong, Law, & Chak, 2015). (ii) The frequency of employing referent-related gestures, functional gestures, facial expressions, and adaptors (bodily or gestural touching behaviors) in PWA was more than double than the controls (Kong, Law, & Lee, 2010). Fluent and non-fluent PWA also used non-verbal behaviors qualitatively differently. (e) Speech prosody. PWA was found to be impaired in speech prosody (Lee, Lam, Kong, & Law, 2015). Significantly longer syllable duration and more inappropriate speech pauses were found in fluent PWA, as compared to controls (Lee, Kong, Chan, & Wang, 2013). In addition, the duration of content and function words in oral discourse by speakers with fluent aphasia were different (Lee, Kong, & Wang, 2014). Conclusion Additional analyses involving distribution of lexical items based on morphology, sentential level performance, as well as richness of propositions and content are in progress. Large databases are critical to enhancing our knowledge of and evidence-based practice for Cantonese aphasia.

Acknowledgements

This study is supported by a grant funded by the National Institutes of Health to Anthony Pak-Hin Kong (PI) and Sam-Po Law (Co-I) (project number: NIH-R01-DC010398).

References

Kong, A.P.H., Law, S.P., & Chak, G. (2015). An investigation of the use of co-verbal gestures in oral discourse among Chinese speakers with fluent versus non-fluent aphasia and healthy adults. Frontiers in Psychology. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2015.65.00079
Kong, A.P.H., Law, S.-P., Kwan, C.C.Y., Lai, C., & Lam, V. (2015). A coding system with independent annotations of gesture forms and functions during verbal communication: Development of a Database of Speech and GEsture (DoSaGE). Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 39(1), 93-111. doi: 10.1007/s10919-014-0200-6
Kong, A.P.H., Law, S.P., & Lee, A.S.Y. (2010). An investigation of use of non-verbal behaviors among individuals with aphasia in Hong Kong: Preliminary data. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 6, 57-58.
Kong, A.P.H., Law, S.P., Wat, W.K.C., & Lai, C. (2015). Co-verbal gestures among speakers with aphasia: Influence of aphasia severity, linguistic and semantic skills, and hemiplegia on gesture employment in oral discourse. Journal of Communication Disorders, 56, 88-102.
Kong, A.P.H., Linnik, A., Law, S., & Shum, W. (2014). Measuring the coherence of healthy and aphasic discourse production in Chinese using Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST). Frontiers in Psychology. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2014.64.00028
Law, S.-P., Kong, A.P.H., Lai, L.W.S., Lai, C. (2015). Effects of context and word class on lexical retrieval in Chinese speakers with anomic aphasia. Aphasiology, 29(1), 81-100. doi: 10.1080/02687038.2014.951598
Lee, T., Kong, A.P.H., Chan, V.C.F., & Wang, H. (2013). Analysis of auto-aligned and auto-segmented oral discourse by speakers with aphasia: A preliminary study on the acoustic parameter of duration. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 94, 71-72.
Lee, T., Kong, A.P.H., & Wang, H. (2014). Duration of content and function words in oral discourse by speakers with fluent aphasia: Preliminary data. Frontiers in Psychology. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2014.64.00039
Lee, T., Lam, W. K., Kong, A.P.H., & Law, S.P. (2015). Analysis of intonation patterns in Cantonese aphasia speech. Proceedings of the 18th Oriental International Committee for the Co-ordination and Standardization of Speech Databases and Assessment Techniques (COCOSDA) Conference, 86-89.
MacWhinney, B., Fromm, D., Forbes, M., & Holland, A. (2011). AphasiaBank: Methods for studying discourse. Aphasiology, 25, 1286–1307.

Keywords: corpus-based analyses, Cantonese, Aphasiabank, Aphasia, discourse

Conference: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting, Llandudno, United Kingdom, 16 Oct - 18 Oct, 2016.

Presentation Type: Poster Sessions

Topic: Academy of Aphasia

Citation: Kong A and Law S (2016). Conducting corpus-based analyses of linguistic, acoustic, and co-verbal performances in aphasia using the Cantonese AphasiaBank database. Front. Psychol. Conference Abstract: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2016.68.00014

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Received: 16 Apr 2016; Published Online: 15 Aug 2016.

* Correspondence: Dr. Anthony Pak Hin Kong, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, United States, akong@hku.hk