SINGLE WORD COMPREHENSION IN APHASIA - INFLUENCE OF ARRAY SIZE, PICTURE RELATEDNESS AND SITUATIONAL CONTEXT

The influence of three variables on single word comprehension in 11 aphasic subjects was assessed using a picture pointing task. The variables were: the number of pictures displayed, the relationship among the pictures and the presence of a situational context. The results indicated that, when the pictures were unrelated, increasing the number of pictures did not affect accuracy until eight pictures were present. When the pictures were related based on a common situational theme but still displayed in a standard format, increasing their number impaired performance when six or eight pictures were present. Introducing a situational context impaired performance beginning with four pictures. Most of the scores on the experimental measures correlated significantly with scores from the word discrimination subtest of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination but not from the recognizing common words subtest of the Minnesota Test for Differential Diagnosis of Aphasia or the Token Test. Clinical and theoretical aspects of this interaction between array size and the relatedness among pictures are discussed. © 1990, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.