Language and non-verbal cognition in aphasia: insights from an eye-tracking paradigm

Abstract

The relation between language and thought is a far from resolved question in both linguistics and cognitive science. A language disorder like aphasia can shed light on this question by using it as a model to explore cognition with impaired access to language. In this study, our research question was whether people with aphasia would succeed in a task that requires generalizing across a series of 32 reversible transitive events that exhibit visual differences, while still falling under the same general event concept (e.g. dog pushes car where the cars and dogs change). We explored this question with an eye-tracking paradigm. This study reports findings from an initial pilot with five people with post-stroke aphasia and 5 matched neurotypical controls. Results showed that the aphasia group was able to make the event generalization, but differed in the time course of processing, with initial insights not maintained longitudinally. We speculate that this may be due to problems with working memory. These preliminary findings suggest that while language impairment does not necessarily interfere with event generalization, may play a crucial role in information management with respect to what we perceive.