SEMANTIC JUDGMENT ABILITY IN ADULT APHASIA Roberta Chapey and Rosemary Lubinski (Brooklyn College of the City University of New York and State University of New York at Buffalo)
The Structure-of-Intellect model proposed by J. P. Guilford (1967) has recently attracted substantial interest. Numerous studies have applied this cognitive model to normal behavior (Akhurst, 1970) and to the behavior of persons with aphasia (Chapey, 1977a, 1977b; Chapey, Rigrodsky and Morrison, 1976, 1977). The Guilford model proposes that there are five intellectual operations: cognition, memory, convergent thinking, divergent thinking, and evaluation or judgment. The present research is in the area of the evaluation or judgment component of this model. According to Guilford (1967) judgment involves the ability of the individual to use the knowledge that he has to make appraisals or comparisons, or to formulate evaluations in terms of known specifications or criterion such as correcteness, identity, or consistency. Although judgment behavior is based upon the individual's previous experience and knowledge of the subject involved, it is always an extension of what is known. It is an appraisal or evaluation based upon knowledge. Guilford (1967) developed a number of tests to study judgment or evaluation skills. These tests require that the individual keep specific criteria in mind and select one best or wisest answer or solution from among several alternatives. In one test, for example, the individual must choose the best word for the sentence "a sandwich always has (a) bread (b) butter (c) lettuce (d) meat. Which one MUST it have in order to be a sandwich?" In another, the subject must judge whether a sentence expresses a complete thought. For example, "Is 'Milk comes from' a sentence?" In yet another test, the individual is given specific classifications and asked to determine if new information can be assigned to the previously established class. For example, "Should the word chair be put with the words cow and horse or with the words table and lamp? " Each judgment task has a predetermined best response or solution. In contrast, convergent semantic behavior involves knowledge. It is the recognition or reproduction of previously learned material and the fitting Cortex (1979) 15, 247-255.
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R. Chapey and R. Lubinski
of old semantic responses to new situations in a more or less mechanical way (Guilford, 1967). For example, when an individual is asked to complete the sentence "Soup is hot, ice cream is -", the respondent must recall and reproduce previously learned and highly knowledge oriented material and perceive the fact that this is a new example of something seen before. Responding to this question calls for reproducing or reapplying the person's knowledge. For example, in multiple-choice questions, the individual is required to recognize what he knows. Recent psycholinguistic literature suggests that knowing how to use language often requires more than knowing how to assemble a lexical and syntactic dictionary (Dale, 1976). Rather, the individual constantly appraises his lexical and syntactic knowledge and determines the appropriateness of words and messages in order to accomplish the goal of his communication. Language competence involves judgments about the grammaticality, acceptability, and comprehensibility (Waryas and Ruder, 1974) of language. Both speaker and listener are active participants in formulating and revising messages until necessary adjustments are made in form, reference, and acceptability in order to convey intended meaning(s) (Muma, 1975). Both the speaker and the listener interact in a variety of feedback operations ... "to recode a message until consensus is reached not only about essential meaning but ways it could be most effective and efficiently conveyed" (Muma, 1975). In effective communication, the speaker and listener constantly make judgments concerning the needed changes that must be made in the message. They attempt to ascertain or evaluate the message that is most suited. Since the requirements of form, reference, and acceptability change from situation to situation, the individual must carefully evaluate each new event and make judgments based upon these evaluations (Muma, 1975). Thus, recent literature suggests that there is an evaluative or judgment component to language. Analysis of the literature in the field of aphasia in light of the Guilford model suggests that there is an evaluation component to the aphasic impairment. Indeed, there are a number of writers (Jackson, 1915; Goldstein, 1948; Schuell, Jenkins and Jimenez-Pabon, 1964; Wepman, 1972; Von Stockert, 1972; Green and Boller, 1974; and Zurif, Green, Caramazza and Goodenough, 1976) who seem to be suggesting that persons with aphasia have difficulty in apraising and evaluating and subsequently revising messages to make adjustments in grammaticality and acceptability. Despite this realization, no previous study has presented semantic evaluation or judgment tasks to persons with aphasia. I t was therefore the purpose of the present study to examine the semantic evaluation behaviors of aphasics in comparison to these same behaviors in a normal group. Specifically, this study obtained and analyzed data in order to answer the following questions: (1) Are there significant
Semantic judgment ability in adult aphasia
249
differences between persons with aphasia and normal individuals in their ability to make semantic judgments? (2) Are there significant relationships among the semantic judgment scores? and (3) Do semantic judgment and convergent behaviors require separate and distinct abilities for subjects with aphasia? MATERIALS AND METHOD
Subjects
Two groups of male and female adults were used in the present study, a group of persons with aphasia and a group of normal individuals. The group with aphasia consisted of 30 subjects who were enrolled in speech pathology programs in New York State. The selection criteria required that the subjects with aphasia had suffered a left hemisphere cerebral vascular accident with right hemiplegia, and were in at least the third posttraumatic month. In addition, each person with aphasia was required to achieve a score of seven or more on the verbal and gestural parts of a convergent thinking test, the Porch Index of Communicative Ability (PICA) (Porch, 1967). It was also necessary for persons with aphasia to score 85% or higher on a convergent vocabulary recognition test which involved pointing to a picture of the concept named. This test contained seventy of the words which were used in the judgment tasks. The normal group consisted of 30 nonhospitalized and nonlanguage impaired subjects. To be included in this study, subjects in both groups had to be between 45 and 75 years of age, have completed between 7 and 14 years of formal education, have spoken English since the third grade, and have adequate vision to participate in the experimental tasks. In addition, the two subject groups were matched as closely as was practical on the basis of age and education. Table I presents a description of the age and education of the two subject groups. TABLE I
Data Descriptive of the Age and Education of the Persons with Aphasia and the Normal Subjects
Subjects Aphasics Normal
Age in years
Years of education
Mean
Range
Mean
Range
62.03 63.16
45-75 52-70
10.76 11.06
7-14 7-13
Measuring instruments
The experimental materials used in the present study were semantic tasks intended to measure semantic evaluation of judgment ability. The four tasks which were used were developed by Guilford and his associates (Guilford, 1967; Guilford and Hoepfner, 1971). The validity and reliability of the measures have been established (Guilford and Hoepfner, 1971). The tasks used in the present study were Complete Thoughts, Judging Object
250
R. Chapey and R. Lubinski
Adaptations, Verbal Classifications, and Word Extensions. The Complete Thoughts task required that subjects judge whether a statement expresses a complete thought. The material was adapted from the Minnesota Test for Differential Diagnosis of Aphasia (Schuell, 1955). Nine complete thought and nine incomplete thoughts were presented. Of the nine incomplete thoughts, three had no agent, three had no action word, and three had no object. For example, the subject saw and simultaneously heard the following: "Apples on trees" "There are many cities in the United States" and "Shouldn't disobey their parents ." In the Judging Object Adaptations task, the subject had to select activities that illustrate the most unusual use for a given object. For example, subjects were asked which is the most unusual use for a book (a) to read a story (b) to cover a hole in a window (c) to look at pictures? The third task, Verbal Classifications, required that each subject assign words to one of two classes or to neither, each class represented by four words. For example, Class A: jacket, sock, shoe, and shirt; Class B: bicycle, boat, car, and train. Subjects were asked to put the following words in Class A, Class B, or neither class: pencil, wagon, belt, pie, bus, soap, tie, truck, and glove. The forth task, the Word Extensions task, required that the respondent select the word that is most involved in or implied by a given thing. For example, "A tree always has (a) leaves (b) roots (c) apples (d) flies. Which one must it have in order to be a tree?" Testing and scoring procedures
Prior to the presentation of the experimental tasks, each person with aphasia was asked to respond to the criterion task, the PICA. The subjects with aphasia were presented with the experimental tasks on two separate days; normal subjects received these tasks on one day. Further, the order of experimental task presentation was randomized for each subject. Each author served as the examiner for fifteen normal individuals and fifteen persons with aphasia. Subjects were tested individually. To insure that each respondent was aware of the requirements of the task, the examiner explained each task very clearly. Then she presented a sample item, and explained the appropriate response. The examiner make every effort to insure that each subject understood the nature of the stimuli, as well as the type of response that was expected. All of the experimental materials were presented visually and auditorally. That is, items within each task were printed in black lettering on white paper. As each subject saw the item, the examiner simultaneously read the item at a moderate pace and with normal intonation. For the Complete Thoughts, Object Adaptations, and Word Extension tasks each subject responded verbally or by poiting to the printed response which was before him. In the Verbal Classifications task subjects responded by moving the word cards from their original position. Subjects were also permitted to respond by instructing the examiner to move the cards to a specific location. The examiner recorded each subject's response to the tasks but gave no indication of correctness. All of the responses to the experimental tasks were scored by the experimenters .
Semantic ;udgment ability in adult aphasia
251
RESULTS
The data for each subject consist of a score for the Complete Thoughts, Judging Object Adaptations, Verbal Classifications, and Word Extensions tasks. Further, each subject received a total judgment score. The highest possibile score on each task was as follows: Complete Thoughts: 18 (9 sentences, 9 nonsenteces); Judging Object Adaptations: 9; Verbal Classifications: 36 (4 tasks, 9 words per task); and Word Extensions: 15. The highest possible score was 78. The first research question posed at the outset of the study called for comparisons of the mean scores of the two groups. The immediate purpose of the statistical analysis was to determine which, if any, of the semantic evaluation measures served to differentiate the two subject groups from one another. Therefore, t tests were performed on all of the judgment experimental variables. Table II shows the mean score, and the standard deviation for each TABLE II
Semantic Judgment Performance on the Guilford Tasks for the Two Sub;ect Groups Persons with Aphasia and Normal Sub;ects Aphasics (N = 30)
Task
Mean Complete Thoughts Judging Object Adaptations Verbal Classifications Word Extensions Total Judgment * p
The Structure-of-Intellect model proposed by J. P. Guilford (1967) has recently attracted substantial interest. Numerous studies have applied this cognitive model to normal behavior (Akhurst, 1970) and to the behavior of persons with aphasia (Chapey, 1977a, 1977b; Chapey, Rigrodsky and Morrison, 1976, 1977). The Guilford model proposes that there are five intellectual operations: cognition, memory, convergent thinking, divergent thinking, and evaluation or judgment. The present research is in the area of the evaluation or judgment component of this model. According to Guilford (1967) judgment involves the ability of the individual to use the knowledge that he has to make appraisals or comparisons, or to formulate evaluations in terms of known specifications or criterion such as correcteness, identity, or consistency. Although judgment behavior is based upon the individual's previous experience and knowledge of the subject involved, it is always an extension of what is known. It is an appraisal or evaluation based upon knowledge. Guilford (1967) developed a number of tests to study judgment or evaluation skills. These tests require that the individual keep specific criteria in mind and select one best or wisest answer or solution from among several alternatives. In one test, for example, the individual must choose the best word for the sentence "a sandwich always has (a) bread (b) butter (c) lettuce (d) meat. Which one MUST it have in order to be a sandwich?" In another, the subject must judge whether a sentence expresses a complete thought. For example, "Is 'Milk comes from' a sentence?" In yet another test, the individual is given specific classifications and asked to determine if new information can be assigned to the previously established class. For example, "Should the word chair be put with the words cow and horse or with the words table and lamp? " Each judgment task has a predetermined best response or solution. In contrast, convergent semantic behavior involves knowledge. It is the recognition or reproduction of previously learned material and the fitting Cortex (1979) 15, 247-255.
248
R. Chapey and R. Lubinski
of old semantic responses to new situations in a more or less mechanical way (Guilford, 1967). For example, when an individual is asked to complete the sentence "Soup is hot, ice cream is -", the respondent must recall and reproduce previously learned and highly knowledge oriented material and perceive the fact that this is a new example of something seen before. Responding to this question calls for reproducing or reapplying the person's knowledge. For example, in multiple-choice questions, the individual is required to recognize what he knows. Recent psycholinguistic literature suggests that knowing how to use language often requires more than knowing how to assemble a lexical and syntactic dictionary (Dale, 1976). Rather, the individual constantly appraises his lexical and syntactic knowledge and determines the appropriateness of words and messages in order to accomplish the goal of his communication. Language competence involves judgments about the grammaticality, acceptability, and comprehensibility (Waryas and Ruder, 1974) of language. Both speaker and listener are active participants in formulating and revising messages until necessary adjustments are made in form, reference, and acceptability in order to convey intended meaning(s) (Muma, 1975). Both the speaker and the listener interact in a variety of feedback operations ... "to recode a message until consensus is reached not only about essential meaning but ways it could be most effective and efficiently conveyed" (Muma, 1975). In effective communication, the speaker and listener constantly make judgments concerning the needed changes that must be made in the message. They attempt to ascertain or evaluate the message that is most suited. Since the requirements of form, reference, and acceptability change from situation to situation, the individual must carefully evaluate each new event and make judgments based upon these evaluations (Muma, 1975). Thus, recent literature suggests that there is an evaluative or judgment component to language. Analysis of the literature in the field of aphasia in light of the Guilford model suggests that there is an evaluation component to the aphasic impairment. Indeed, there are a number of writers (Jackson, 1915; Goldstein, 1948; Schuell, Jenkins and Jimenez-Pabon, 1964; Wepman, 1972; Von Stockert, 1972; Green and Boller, 1974; and Zurif, Green, Caramazza and Goodenough, 1976) who seem to be suggesting that persons with aphasia have difficulty in apraising and evaluating and subsequently revising messages to make adjustments in grammaticality and acceptability. Despite this realization, no previous study has presented semantic evaluation or judgment tasks to persons with aphasia. I t was therefore the purpose of the present study to examine the semantic evaluation behaviors of aphasics in comparison to these same behaviors in a normal group. Specifically, this study obtained and analyzed data in order to answer the following questions: (1) Are there significant
Semantic judgment ability in adult aphasia
249
differences between persons with aphasia and normal individuals in their ability to make semantic judgments? (2) Are there significant relationships among the semantic judgment scores? and (3) Do semantic judgment and convergent behaviors require separate and distinct abilities for subjects with aphasia? MATERIALS AND METHOD
Subjects
Two groups of male and female adults were used in the present study, a group of persons with aphasia and a group of normal individuals. The group with aphasia consisted of 30 subjects who were enrolled in speech pathology programs in New York State. The selection criteria required that the subjects with aphasia had suffered a left hemisphere cerebral vascular accident with right hemiplegia, and were in at least the third posttraumatic month. In addition, each person with aphasia was required to achieve a score of seven or more on the verbal and gestural parts of a convergent thinking test, the Porch Index of Communicative Ability (PICA) (Porch, 1967). It was also necessary for persons with aphasia to score 85% or higher on a convergent vocabulary recognition test which involved pointing to a picture of the concept named. This test contained seventy of the words which were used in the judgment tasks. The normal group consisted of 30 nonhospitalized and nonlanguage impaired subjects. To be included in this study, subjects in both groups had to be between 45 and 75 years of age, have completed between 7 and 14 years of formal education, have spoken English since the third grade, and have adequate vision to participate in the experimental tasks. In addition, the two subject groups were matched as closely as was practical on the basis of age and education. Table I presents a description of the age and education of the two subject groups. TABLE I
Data Descriptive of the Age and Education of the Persons with Aphasia and the Normal Subjects
Subjects Aphasics Normal
Age in years
Years of education
Mean
Range
Mean
Range
62.03 63.16
45-75 52-70
10.76 11.06
7-14 7-13
Measuring instruments
The experimental materials used in the present study were semantic tasks intended to measure semantic evaluation of judgment ability. The four tasks which were used were developed by Guilford and his associates (Guilford, 1967; Guilford and Hoepfner, 1971). The validity and reliability of the measures have been established (Guilford and Hoepfner, 1971). The tasks used in the present study were Complete Thoughts, Judging Object
250
R. Chapey and R. Lubinski
Adaptations, Verbal Classifications, and Word Extensions. The Complete Thoughts task required that subjects judge whether a statement expresses a complete thought. The material was adapted from the Minnesota Test for Differential Diagnosis of Aphasia (Schuell, 1955). Nine complete thought and nine incomplete thoughts were presented. Of the nine incomplete thoughts, three had no agent, three had no action word, and three had no object. For example, the subject saw and simultaneously heard the following: "Apples on trees" "There are many cities in the United States" and "Shouldn't disobey their parents ." In the Judging Object Adaptations task, the subject had to select activities that illustrate the most unusual use for a given object. For example, subjects were asked which is the most unusual use for a book (a) to read a story (b) to cover a hole in a window (c) to look at pictures? The third task, Verbal Classifications, required that each subject assign words to one of two classes or to neither, each class represented by four words. For example, Class A: jacket, sock, shoe, and shirt; Class B: bicycle, boat, car, and train. Subjects were asked to put the following words in Class A, Class B, or neither class: pencil, wagon, belt, pie, bus, soap, tie, truck, and glove. The forth task, the Word Extensions task, required that the respondent select the word that is most involved in or implied by a given thing. For example, "A tree always has (a) leaves (b) roots (c) apples (d) flies. Which one must it have in order to be a tree?" Testing and scoring procedures
Prior to the presentation of the experimental tasks, each person with aphasia was asked to respond to the criterion task, the PICA. The subjects with aphasia were presented with the experimental tasks on two separate days; normal subjects received these tasks on one day. Further, the order of experimental task presentation was randomized for each subject. Each author served as the examiner for fifteen normal individuals and fifteen persons with aphasia. Subjects were tested individually. To insure that each respondent was aware of the requirements of the task, the examiner explained each task very clearly. Then she presented a sample item, and explained the appropriate response. The examiner make every effort to insure that each subject understood the nature of the stimuli, as well as the type of response that was expected. All of the experimental materials were presented visually and auditorally. That is, items within each task were printed in black lettering on white paper. As each subject saw the item, the examiner simultaneously read the item at a moderate pace and with normal intonation. For the Complete Thoughts, Object Adaptations, and Word Extension tasks each subject responded verbally or by poiting to the printed response which was before him. In the Verbal Classifications task subjects responded by moving the word cards from their original position. Subjects were also permitted to respond by instructing the examiner to move the cards to a specific location. The examiner recorded each subject's response to the tasks but gave no indication of correctness. All of the responses to the experimental tasks were scored by the experimenters .
Semantic ;udgment ability in adult aphasia
251
RESULTS
The data for each subject consist of a score for the Complete Thoughts, Judging Object Adaptations, Verbal Classifications, and Word Extensions tasks. Further, each subject received a total judgment score. The highest possibile score on each task was as follows: Complete Thoughts: 18 (9 sentences, 9 nonsenteces); Judging Object Adaptations: 9; Verbal Classifications: 36 (4 tasks, 9 words per task); and Word Extensions: 15. The highest possible score was 78. The first research question posed at the outset of the study called for comparisons of the mean scores of the two groups. The immediate purpose of the statistical analysis was to determine which, if any, of the semantic evaluation measures served to differentiate the two subject groups from one another. Therefore, t tests were performed on all of the judgment experimental variables. Table II shows the mean score, and the standard deviation for each TABLE II
Semantic Judgment Performance on the Guilford Tasks for the Two Sub;ect Groups Persons with Aphasia and Normal Sub;ects Aphasics (N = 30)
Task
Mean Complete Thoughts Judging Object Adaptations Verbal Classifications Word Extensions Total Judgment * p
