Heterogeneity in semantic priming effect with a lexical decision task in patients after left hemisphere stroke

ABSTRACT Investigations on the semantic priming effect (SPE) in patients after left hemisphere (LH) lesions have shown disparities that may be explained by the variability in performance found among patients. The aim of the present study was to verify the existence of subgroups of patients after LH stroke by searching for dissociations between performance on the lexical decision task based on the semantic priming paradigm and performance on direct memory, semantic association and language tasks. All 17 patients with LH lesions after stroke (ten non-fluent aphasics and seven non aphasics) were analyzed individually. Results indicated the presence of three groups of patients according to SPE: one exhibiting SPE at both stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs), one with SPE only at long SOA, and another, larger group with no SPE.

摘要 针对左半球（left hemisphere, LH）损伤患者的语义启动效应（semantic priming effect, SPE）相关研究已观测到诸多差异，此类差异或可归因于不同患者间的行为表现变异性。本研究旨在通过比对基于语义启动范式的词汇判断任务、直接记忆任务、语义联想任务与语言任务的表现差异，验证卒中后左半球损伤患者是否存在不同亚组。本研究对全部17例卒中后左半球损伤患者（含10例非流畅性失语症患者与7例非失语症患者）开展了个体水平分析。结果显示，依据语义启动效应可将受试患者划分为三组：其一在两种刺激呈现异步性（stimulus onset asynchronies, SOAs）下均表现出语义启动效应；其二仅在长SOA条件下呈现语义启动效应；其三为规模最大的一组，未表现出任何语义启动效应。