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ERIC Number: EJ953680
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Jan
Pages: 9
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0093-934X
EISSN: N/A
Difficulty Processing Temporary Syntactic Ambiguities in Lewy Body Spectrum Disorder
Grossman, Murray; Gross, Rachel G.; Moore, Peachie; Dreyfuss, Michael; McMillan, Corey T.; Cook, Philip A.; Ash, Sherry; Siderowf, Andrew
Brain and Language, v120 n1 p52-60 Jan 2012
While grammatical aspects of language are preserved, executive deficits are prominent in Lewy body spectrum disorder (LBSD), including Parkinson's disease (PD), Parkinson's dementia (PDD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). We examined executive control during sentence processing in LBSD by assessing temporary structural ambiguities. Using an on-line word detection procedure, patients heard sentences with a syntactic structure that has high-compatibility or low-compatibility with the main verb's statistically preferred syntactic structure, and half of the sentences were lengthened strategically between the onset of the ambiguity and its resolution. We found selectively slowed processing of lengthened ambiguous sentences in the PDD/DLB subgroup. This correlated with impairments on measures of executive control. Regression analyses related the working memory deficit during ambiguous sentence processing to significant cortical thinning in frontal and parietal regions. These findings emphasize the role of prefrontal disease in the executive limitations that interfere with processing ambiguous sentences in LBSD. (Contains 3 tables and 2 figures.)
Elsevier. 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, FL 32887-4800. Tel: 877-839-7126; Tel: 407-345-4020; Fax: 407-363-1354; e-mail: usjcs@elsevier.com; Web site: http://www.elsevier.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A