What happens when they think they are right? Error awareness analysis of sentence comprehension deficits in aphasia

Figures & data

Table 1. Demographic, linguistic, and clinical background information of the participants.

Participant	Age	Gender	Education level	Linguistic profile	Y:M post-onset	Location
A1	68	F	1	Bilingual	0:10	I- LMCA
A2	55	M	2	Bilingual	7:4	I-RMCA
A3	57	M	2	Bilingual	9:10	I- LMCA
A4	61	M	2	Bilingual	1:5	I- LMCA
A5	82	M	1	Bilingual	2:8	I- LMCA
A6	85	M	2	Bilingual	0:9	I- LMCA
A7	64	M	1	Bilingual	2:5	I- LMCA
A8	58	M	2	Monolingual	>8:00	AE
A9	79	F	1	Monolingual	2:9	I-LMCA
A10	59	M	1	Monolingual	2:11	I- LMCA
A11	77	M	2	Monolingual	2:10	I- LMCA
A12	57	F	2	Monolingual	1:00	I-LMCA
A13	65	M	2	Monolingual	5:7	I- LMCA
A14	58	M	1	Monolingual	2:6	I- LMCA
C1	67	M	2	Bilingual	n/a	n/a
C2	54	M	2	Bilingual	n/a	n/a
C3	63	F	1	Bilingual	n/a	n/a
C4	58	F	1	Bilingual	n/a	n/a
C5	77	F	1	Bilingual	n/a	n/a
C6	82	M	2	Bilingual	n/a	n/a
C7	73	M	1	Bilingual	n/a	n/a
C8	44	F	2	Monolingual	n/a	n/a
C9	64	F	1	Monolingual	n/a	n/a
C10	58	M	3	Monolingual	n/a	n/a
C11	79	M	2	Monolingual	n/a	n/a
C12	53	F	2	Monolingual	n/a	n/a
C13	65	M	1	Monolingual	n/a	n/a
C14	44	M	2	Monolingual	n/a	n/a

F = female; M = male; 1 = elementary; 2 = technical; 3 = university; I-LMCA = ischemic-left middle cerebral artery; I-RMCA = ischemic-right middle cerebral artery; AE = anoxic encephalopathy; n/a = not applicable.

Table 2. Summary of the individual scores obtained in the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-III; Wechsler, 1997) and the extended version of the Boston Aphasia Test (%) (BDAE; Goodglass, Kaplan, & Barresi, 2005; Adapted to Spanish by García-Albea, 2005).

		BDAE
	WAIS-III				Syntactic processing (%)
Participant	Digit-span (pCTL)	Word comprehension	Commands	Complex ideational material	Touching A with B	Embedded sentences
A1	68.8	100	86.66	41.66	58.33	60
A2	14.7	100	86.66	83.33	66.66	80
A3	68.8	94.59	100	75	58.33	60
A4	6.8	91.89	80	58.33	33.33	30
A5	14	86.48	66.66	41.66	16.66	70
A6	14	94.59	86.66	66.66	50	40
A7	–	91.89	73.33	50	25	50
A8	68.8	94.59	100	75	66.66	60
A9	0.7	94.59	80	83.33	33.33	90
A10	0	89.1	66.66	50	66.66	60
A11	14	94.59	86.66	91.66	33.33	90
A12	0	91.89	80	58.33	33.33	30
A13	–	81.08	–	50	16.66	60
A14	37.1	97.29	100	66.66	41.66	90

pCTL: percentile by age range.

Figure 1. Sample visual display. Target stimulus (Active): “El árbitro ha empujado al portero” (The referee has pushed the goalkeeper). (a) Target picture; (b) Foil.

Table 3. Regions of Interest (ROI), duration (ms) (mean and SD), and comparison of length across paired conditions.

	ROI (mean duration and SD)
	ROI 1 Argument 1 999 ms (46)		ROI 2 Verb 931 ms (12)		ROI 3 Argument 2 852 ms (30)
Paired conditions	t	p	t	p	t	p
Active vs. Passive	0.945	.350	−0.174	.863	−1.376	.177
Subj. vs. Obj. Relative	−0.221	.826	−1.877	.068	1.268	.213
Subj. vs. Obj. Cleft	1.074	.290	−0.397	.693	0.366	.716
A-T vs. T-A	−0.554	.581	−0.027	.177	0.077	.939

ROI: Region Of Interest; A-T: Agent-Theme; T-A: Theme-Agent.

Figure 2. Response grid used to self-report confidence rate on the accuracy of the sentence–picture matching task.

The emoticons represented the next confidence rates: green smiley face = “sure, I answered correctly”; amber neutral face = “I don´t know/guess”; red sad face = “sure, I answered incorrectly”.

Table 4. Comprehension accuracy (%) and standard error (SE) as a function of group and sentence condition.

	Condition
	Agent-Theme			Theme-Agent
Group	Active	Subj. Cleft	Subj. Rel.		Passive	Obj. Cleft	Obj. Rel.
PWA	81.88%	79.92%	74.81%		74.34%	60.44%	61.62%
	(2.32)	(2.44)	(2.60)		(2.66)	(2.99)	(2.95)
NBD	98.17%	96.05%	93.18%		97.45%	96.78%	95.00%
	(0.80)	(1.16)	(1.51)		(0.95)	(1.05)	(1.30)

PWA: People With Aphasia; NBD: Non-Brain Damaged.

Table 5. Distribution (%) of the confidence ratings within correctly and incorrectly answered trials in both PWA and NBD groups.

	PWA			NBD
Response accuracy	“sure, I answered correctly”	“I don’t know/guess”	“Sure, I answered incorrectly”	“Sure, I answered correctly”	“I don’t know/guess”	“Sure, I answered incorrectly”
Correct answers	90.44%	5.71%	3.83%	98.37%	1.43%	0.18%
	(n = 1060)	(n = 67)	(n = 45)	(n = 1576)	(n = 23)	(n = 3)
Incorrect answers	77.60%	9.53%	12.86%	49.23%	15.38%	35.38%
	(n = 350)	(n = 43)	(n = 58)	(n = 32)	(n = 10)	(n = 23)

PWA: People With Aphasia; NBD: Non-Brain Damaged.

Figure 3. Distribution (%) of the self-reported judgement of the sentence–picture matching task as a function of response accuracy in both NBD and PWA groups.

Confidence rating 1 = “sure, I answered correctly”, 2 = “I do not know, guessing”, 3 = “sure, I answered incorrectly”. NBD: non-brain damaged; PWA: people with aphasia.

Figure 4. Predicted probability of the confidence rating on the comprehension accuracy, illustrated by the sensitivity (i.e., true positive rate) against 1-specificity (i.e., false positive rate).

NBD: non-brain damaged; PWA: people with aphasia. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) is a measure of how well confidence ratings can distinguish between correctly and incorrectly answered trials.

Figure 5. Fixation pattern of PWA across the visual display along the presentation of the auditory stimuli.

The gaze data is presented as a function of response accuracy (correct, incorrect) and confidence rate (1, 2, 3). Confidence rate, 1 = “sure, I answered correctly”, 2 = “I do not know, guessing”, 3 = “sure, I answered incorrectly”. Values above .5 indicate more fixations into the target picture, whereas values below .5 indicate more fixations into the foil picture.

Table 6. Comparison of proportion of gaze-fixations in between correctly and incorrectly answered trials across ROIs. Analysis of the gaze-data of people with aphasia as a function of confidence with which the trials were rated.

Incorrect answers		ROI 1				ROI 2				ROI 3				ROI 4
CR = 1		β	SE	t-ratio	p	β	SE	t-ratio	p	β	SE	t-ratio	p	β	SE	t-ratio	p
ROI 1		−0.068	0.023	−2.893	.0038	−0.170	0.023	−7.166	<.0001	−0.313	0.023	−13.172	<.0001	−0.426	0.023	−17.969	<.0001
ROI 2		−0.192	0.023	8.123	<.0001	−0.294	0.023	−12.401	<.0001	−0.437	0.023	−18.407	<.0001	−0.550	0.023	−23.217	<.0001
ROI 3		−0.258	0.023	10.907	<.0001	−0.360	0.023	−15.186	<.0001	−0.503	0.023	−21.188	<.0001	−0.616	0.023	−26.002	<.0001
ROI 4		−0.338	0.023	14.299	<.0001	−0.439	0.023	−18.588	<.0001	−0.582	0.023	−24.599	<.0001	−0.696	0.023	−29.428	<.0001
CR = 2		β	SE	t-ratio	p	β	SE	t-ratio	p	β	SE	t-ratio	p	β	SE	t-ratio	p
ROI 1		−0.097	0.076	−1.269	.2045	−0.132	0.076	−1.712	.0869	−0.252	0.076	−3.288	.001	−0.325	0.076	−4.252	<.0001
ROI 2		−0.164	0.076	−2.165	.0304	−0.199	0.076	−2.609	.0091	−0.319	0.076	−4.200	<.0001	−0.392	0.075	−5.174	<.0001
ROI 3		−0.218	0.075	−2.891	.0039	−0.252	0.075	−3.336	.0009	−0.373	0.076	−4.941	<.0001	−0.446	0.075	−5.926	<.0001
ROI 4		−0.269	0.075	−3.569	.0004	−0.304	0.075	−4.013	.0001	−0.424	0.075	−5.620	<.0001	−0.497	0.075	−6.606	<.0001
CR = 3		β	SE	t-ratio	p	β	SE	t-ratio	p	β	SE	t-ratio	p	β	SE	t-ratio	p
ROI 1		−0.171	0.078	−2.168	.0302	−0.072	0.078	−0.923	.3563	−0.123	0.078	−1.568	.1169	−0.135	0.078	−1.723	.0849
ROI 2		−0.164	0.079	−2.070	.0385	−0.066	0.079	−0.834	.4045	−0.117	0.079	−1.474	.1405	−0.128	0.079	−1.627	.1037
ROI 3		−0.334	0.079	−4.199	<.0001	−0.235	0.079	−2.964	.0031	−0.286	0.079	−3.604	.0003	−0.298	0.079	−3.772	.0002
ROI 4		−0.361	0.079	−4.523	<.0001	−0.263	0.079	−3.292	.001	−0.314	0.079	−3.930	.0001	−0.325	0.079	−4.099	<.0001

C.R.: Confidence rate; 1 = “sure, I answered correctly”; 2 = “I don’t know/guess”; 3 = “sure, I answered incorrectly”. ROI = Region Of Interest; ROI 1 = subject/object of the main clause or the antecedent of the relative clause; ROI 2 = (relative pronoun +) verbal phrase; ROI 3 = subject/object of the verbal phrase; ROI 4 = Post-offset region. Significance level p < .003 with Bonferroni’s correction for multiple comparisons.

Table A1. Individual scores (%) in the sentence–picture matching task attending to group and argument order.

	Argument order			Argument order
Group = PWA participant	A-T	T-A	Group = NBD participant	A-T	T-A
A1	76.27	72.88	C1	96.67	98.31
A2	81.36	66.67	C2	93.33	96.67
A3	94.92	65.52	C3	96.61	98.33
A4	96.55	63.79	C4	100	91.67
A5	81.36	65.52	C5	94.83	95
A6	82.76	72.88	C6	93.22	94.92
A7	61.82	50	C7	91.53	96.49
A8	98.31	85.19	C8	96.67	100
A9	50	53.85	C9	96.55	100
A10	89.83	50.88	C10	95	96.67
A11	96.67	86.44	C11	96.67	96.67
A12	55.56	50.85	C12	96.67	96.67
A13	50	44.83	C13	95	95
A14	85	86.44	C14	98.31	93.33

PWA: people with aphasia; NBD: non-brain damaged; A-T: Agent-Theme; T-A: Theme-Agent.

For individual scores on sentence comprehension across conditions, we refer the reader to Arantzeta (2017).

Wechsler, D. A. (1997). Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III (WAIS-III). The Psychological Corporation: San Antonio. ISBN: 0-158-98104-9.

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Goodglass, H., Kaplan, H., & Barresi, B. (2005). The assessment of aphasia and related disorders. (3rd ed.). (J. E. García-Albea, Spanish adaptation). Madrid:Médica Panamericana. ISBN: 84-7903-785-7.

 Google Scholar

Arantzeta, M. (2017). Sentence comprehension in monolingual and bilingual aphasia: Evidence from behavioral and eye-tracking methods. Groningen, NL: Groningen Dissertations in Linguistics (GRODIL). ISBN: 978-90-367-9635-4.

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