Elsevier

Brain and Language

Volume 57, Issue 2, April 1997, Pages 225-253
Brain and Language

Regular Article
Inhibitory Control during Sentence Comprehension in Individuals with Dementia of the Alzheimer Type,☆☆,

https://doi.org/10.1006/brln.1997.1747Get rights and content

Abstract

In two experiments we investigated the extent to which individuals with dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) manage the activation of contextually appropriate and inappropriate meanings of ambiguous words during sentence comprehension. DAT individuals and healthy older individuals read sentences that ended in ambiguous words and then determined if a test word fit the overall meaning of the sentence. Analysis of response latencies indicated that DAT individuals were less efficient than healthy older individuals at suppressing inappropriate meanings of ambiguous words not implied by sentence context, but enhanced appropriate meanings to the same extent, if not more, than healthy older adults. DAT individuals were also more likely to allow inappropriate information to actually drive responses (i.e., increased intrusion errors). Overall, the results are consistent with a growing number of studies demonstrating impairments in inhibitory control, with relative preservation of facilitatory processes, in DAT.

References (62)

  • D.A. Loewenstein et al.

    The occurrence of different intrusive errors in patients with Alzheimer's Disease, multiple cerebral infarctions, and major depression

    Brain and Cognition

    (1991)
  • A. Martin et al.

    Word production and comprehension in Alzheimer's disease: The breakdown of semantic knowledge

    Brain and Language

    (1983)
  • B.E. Murdoch et al.

    Language disorders in dementia of the Alzheimer type

    Brain and Language

    (1987)
  • R.D. Nebes et al.

    The effect of contextual constraint on semantic judgments by Alzheimer patients

    Cortex

    (1991)
  • A.G. Shindler et al.

    Intrusions and perseverations

    Brain and Language

    (1984)
  • S.R. Smith et al.

    Semantic abilities in dementia of the Alzheimer type. II. Grammatical semantics

    Brain and Language

    (1989)
  • D.A. Swinney

    Lexical access during sentence comprehension: (Re)consideration of context effects

    Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

    (1979)
  • A.I. Troster et al.

    A comparison of the category fluency deficits associated with Alzheimer's and Huntington's disease

    Brain and Language

    (1989)
  • A.D. Baddeley et al.

    Working memory

    The psychology of learning and motivation

    (1974)
  • N. Butters et al.

    Episodic and semantic memory: A comparison of amnesic and demented patients

    Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology

    (1987)
  • P.A. Carpenter et al.

    The role of working memory in language comprehension

  • G. Cohen

    Age difference in memory for text: Production deficiency or processing limitation?

  • S.L. Connelly et al.

    Age and reading: The impact of distraction

    Psychology and Aging

    (1991)
  • L.A. Cushman et al.

    A controlled study of processing of semantic and syntactic information in Alzheimer's disease

    Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology

    (1987)
  • A.R. Damasio et al.

    Reflections on the selectivity of neuropathological changes in Alzheimer's disease

  • P.A. Fuld et al.

    Intrusions as a sign of Alzheimer dementia: Chemical and pathological verification

    Annals of Neurology

    (1982)
  • M.A. Gernsbacher

    Language comprehension as structure building

    (1990)
  • M.A. Gernsbacher

    Cognitive processes and mechanism in language comprehension: The structure building framework

  • M.A. Gernsbacher et al.

    The mechanism of suppression: A component of general comprehension skill

    Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

    (1991)
  • M.A. Gernsbacher et al.

    The role of suppression in sentence comprehension

  • Cited by (62)

    • Bilingual language intrusions and other speech errors in Alzheimer's disease

      2017, Brain and Cognition
      Citation Excerpt :

      Based primarily on neuroimaging studies of language switching (largely without sentence context), Abutalebi and Green (2007), Abutalebi and Green (2008; Green & Abutalebi, 2013; see also Grundy, Anderson, & Bialystok, 2017; Luk, Green, Abutalebi, & Grady, 2012) proposed that inhibition is a critical cognitive mechanism needed to maintain control over bilingual language selection, and defined a Language Control Network comprising the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), left caudate nucleus (LCN), superior marginal gyrus (SMG), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). These and adjacent regions are also recruited for nonlinguistic control tasks (De Baene, Duyck, Brass, & Carreiras, 2015; Garbin et al., 2010; Weissberger, Gollan, Bondi, Clark, & Wierenga, 2015), are known to support monitoring and switching (e.g., Gurd et al., 2002; Hedden & Gabrieli, 2010), and are often impaired in AD (Faust, Balota, Duchek, Gernsbacher, & Smith, 1997; Hutchison, Balota, & Duchek, 2010; Troyer, Moscovitch, & Winocur, 1997). Our interpretation of the error patterns observed above implies that these same brain regions can function relatively well in AD when supported by context, and fail only when taxed by the most difficult control tasks (i.e., inhibition of the dominant language was spared, but the ability to toggle inhibition on and off rapidly to allow production of a few dominant language targets embedded in connected non-dominant language speech was impaired).

    • Selective attention deficits in early and moderate stage Parkinson's disease

      2012, Neuroscience Letters
      Citation Excerpt :

      However, since RTs were generally longer for the PD patients, we thought it useful to use ratios to examine specific effects that are not influenced by overall reaction time. Ratio score transformations have proven effective in uncovering group effects in processes, in a manner that is independent of global slowing [10]. Consequently, we calculated a ratio score transformation for each participant by dividing the mean RT, determined under each condition, by the participant's overall RT (Table 2b) for each of the 3 attentional networks.

    • Rigorous development of prompting dialogues

      2011, Journal of Biomedical Informatics
      Citation Excerpt :

      The following design principles for prompting dialogues are based on a review of the literature about providing verbal prompts to adults with cognitive impairment: the prompts should be in line with expectations and unambiguous [16], prompts should use common sense and everyday landmarks [7],

    • Word association norms for older adults

      2005, Revue europeenne de psychologie appliquee
    View all citing articles on Scopus

    The initial portion of the research reported in this article was supported by a National Institute on Aging grant (AG08820) to Stan Smith, by an Alzheimer's Disease Center of Oregon grant to Mark Faust and Stan Smith, and by an endowment to the Wheeler Cognitive Neuropsychology Laboratory by Coleman and Cornelia Wheeler. The final portion of the research and the manuscript were completed while Dr. Faust was a Research Fellow at the Washington University Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (P50 AG05681). During this period Dr. Faust was supported by Grants R01 AG10193 and P01 AG03991 from the National Institute on Aging to Dr. David Balota and by ADRC Gift funds. The authors thank Lori Kennedy and Kris Kuhlemeier for their help in testing the participants. The authors also thank Dr. Leonard Berg and Dr. John Morris and the physicians associated with Washington University Alzheimer's Disease Research Center for providing their time and expertise in diagnosing individuals with DAT.

    ☆☆

    Address reprint requests to Mark Faust, at the Department of Psychology, University of South Alabama, Life Sciences Building, Room 320, Mobile, AL, 36688-0002. E-mail: [email protected].

    G. H. Bower

    View full text