The relationship between semantics, phonology, and naming performance in aphasia: a structural equation modeling approach

ABSTRACT

The exploration of naming error patterns in aphasia provides insights into the cognitive processes underlying naming performance. We investigated how semantic and phonological abilities correlate and how they influence naming performance in aphasia. Data from 296 individuals with aphasia, drawn from the Moss Aphasia Psycholinguistics Project Database, were analyzed using a structural equation model. The model incorporated latent variables for semantics and phonology and manifest variables for naming accuracy and error patterns. There was a moderate positive correlation between semantics and phonology after controlling for overall aphasia severity. Both semantic and phonological abilities influenced naming accuracy. Semantic abilities negatively related to semantic, mixed, unrelated errors, and no responses. Interestingly, phonology positively affected semantic errors. Additionally, phonological abilities negatively related to each of phonological and neologism errors. These results highlight the role of semantic and phonological skills on naming performance in aphasia and reveal a relationship between these cognitive processes.

KEYWORDS:

• Aphasia
• naming
• error patterns
• semantics
• phonology
• structural equation modeling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The R code used in this study has been made publicly available on the Open Science Framework (OSF) platform, ensuring transparency and facilitating reproducibility of the analyses conducted. For more information: visit: https://osf.io/5qn8f/. For use of MAPPD data, a request has to be made from Dr. Daniel Mirman. For more information, visit https://www.mappd.org/about.html.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.