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The effectiveness of semantic and syllabic cues for Cantonese
aphasic patients with naming difficulties
University of Hong Kong
Lee, Wai-ling, Janise; 李偉玲
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2001
http://hdl.handle.net/10722/56300
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.; The
author retains all proprietary rights, such as patent rights and
the right to use in future works.
The Effectiveness of Semantic and Syllabic Cues for Cantonese Aphasic Patients with
Naming Difficulties
Lee Wai Ling, Janise
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science
(Speech and Hearing Sciences), The University of Hong Kong, 4 May 2001.
Abstract
This study investigated the cueing effectiveness of semantic cues using five semantic
associates: superordinate, attribute, contrast coordinate, function associate & functional
context as well as phonological cues using initial syllables & final syllables. Five
Cantonese-speaking aphasic patients (three with anomia, one with transcortical sensory and
one with Broca's aphasia) were recruited as subjects in this study. Cues were presented
following failure in confrontation naming. Four major findings were obtained: (1) syllabic
cues were more effective than semantic cues; (2) there was no significant difference in the
cueing effectiveness of the five semantic associates; (3) initial syllable cues were more
beneficial than final syllable cues; and (4) syllables with different degree of semantic
relatedness to the whole words did not have significant difference in cueing effectiveness.
Modifications to lexical processing model were proposed to account for the findings.
2
Introduction
c
Word-finding difficulty is certainly one of the most common features in aphasia.5
(Deloche, Hannequin, Dordain, Perrier, Pichard, Quint, Metz-Lutz, Kremin, & Gardebat,
1996, p. 106). According to information processing models, three main steps are involved in
naming: (1) extraction of the visual features of an object to match the structural descriptions
in the visual object recognition system, (2) access to the semantic system for appropriate
representation, (3) retrieval of phonological representation from the phonological output
lexicon (Kay, Lesser & Colheart, 1992; Deloche et al, 1996; & Whitworth, 1999). Naming
failure can be a result of breakdown at the different levels. Phonology and semantic
information can assist in word retrieval in aphasic patients when word-finding difficulty
occurs (Howard, Patterson, Franklin, Orchard-Lisle, & Morton, 1985). Li and Williams (1990)
suggested that phonemic cue functions at the phonological output lexicon by
triggering/initiating the articulatory production. Other studies pointed out that phonemic cue
actually intervenes at semantic level by supplying information to the inadequate semantic
system (Li & Canter, 1991; Stimley & Noll, 1991; Howard & Orchard-Lisle, 1984). Semantic
cue functions at the semantic level by 'facilitating activation of semantically related
representations and increasing the amount of relevant information available on which to base
the selection of phonological word form' (Stimley & Noll, 1991, p.505).
Goodglass & Baker (1976) studied the ordering offiveassociative dimensions of
3
semantic field, which are defined as follows:
Superordinate:
the class name to which the target belongs (e.g. target - banana;
superordinate - fruit)
Attribute:
a feature of the target (e.g. target - banana; attribute - yellow)
Contrast coordinate: another member of the same class (e.g. target - banana;
contrast coordinate - apple)
Function associate: the action carried out or worked upon by the target (e.g. target banana; function associate - eat)
Functional context: situation or place the target occurs (e.g. target - banana;
functional context - market)
The response latency and number of misses the normal subjects recognized the classes of
associates for sixteen objects were compared. They assumed that the closer to the identity
label, the shorter the response latency and fewer number of misses. Under this assumption,
they found that associates of a target word follows an order of dimension, with superordinate,
attribute & functional context closest to the identity label, and contrast coordinate & function
associates further away. It is presumed that the closer the associate to the identity label, the
more effective for it to act as a semantic cue. Pease & Goodglass (1978) studied the effect of
using superordinate, functional context & function associates as semantic cues, and they
found that the three are equal in ability to facilitate word retrieval in aphasics. The above
study, however, did not support the hypothesis. The effectiveness of each class of associates
as semantic cue does not seem to follow strictly the order of dimension. Therefore, the first
objective of this study is to find out which one of the five classes of associates is the most
4
effective semantic cue.
Many studies revealed the effectiveness of using initial sound of a word to be the cue for
facilitating word retrieval in aphasic (Stimley & Noll, 1991; Li & Williams, 1990; Pease &
Goodglass, 1978; Love & Webb, 1977). They found that initial sound was a very effective
cue to aid word retrieval in aphasic patients. However, none of the studies used the final
phoneme/syllable as cues. The reason may be that the syllable boundary in English is not so
clear-cut and there is often interference between the syllables (Taft & Forster, 1976). On the
other hand, Cantonese has clear-cut syllable boundaries with minimal influence of
morphological complexity. Matthews & Yip (1994) stated that Cantonese has few inflections
or derivational affixes and it is an isolating language with each syllable has its own meaning.
With such clear-cut syllable boundaries, the effect of using final syllable as syllabic cue can
be investigated. Therefore, the second objective of this study is to compare the effectiveness
of initial syllable and final syllable in aiding word retrieval in Cantonese-speaking aphasic
subjects. Since the majority of Chinese words are composed of two characters, bisyllabic
words were adopted in this study. The comparative effectiveness of first syllable and second
syllable cues has the implications for lexical representations in lexical retrieval models.
More interestingly, the use of Cantonese to study the effectiveness of phonological cues
and semantic cues in naming provides an opportunity to assess a hypothesis of spoken word
production that has gather much attention in recent years, i.e., the summation hypothesis
5
(Hillis & Caramazza, 1995). 'Chinese has little inflection and each syllable is a meaningful
form (morpheme) in its own right' (Matthews & Yip, 1994). Therefore, a single syllable in a
word may also carry semantic information to cue the whole word. For example, the bisyllabic
word 'U-4*' means iron, with thefirstsyllable means the action of ironing and the final
syllable means bean. Since 'action of ironing' is the function associate of'iron', it is obvious
that the first syllable actually contains semantic information to the whole word. When the
first syllable is presented as syllabic cue, semantic information is also conveyed. Previous
studies have found that stimulus redundancy improved naming performance and was superior
to single cues presented one at a time (Huntley, Pindzola & Weidner, 1986; Weidner & Jinks,
1983). However, none of these studies investigated the cueing effectiveness of syllabic cue in
combination with semantic cue. Hillis and Caramazza (1995) examined the picture naming,
reading and comprehension abilities of three aphasic patients. They found that the patients
showed disproportionate intact oral reading than would be expected given their limited
abilities of lexical-semantic processing and sublexical orthography-to-phonology conversion.
They proposed a summation hypothesis that at least partial semantic information and
sublexical phonological information interact to access lexico-phonological representations for
output in the task of oral reading. If the summation hypothesis is correct, when Cantonese
syllables are given as cues to aid word retrieval in naming, the same interaction occurs in
such a way that phonological information conveyed by the direct, non-lexical routefromthe
6
phonological input lexicon to the phonological output lexicon interacts with the semantic
information conveyed by the lexical routefromthe phonological input lexicon through the
semantic system to the phonological output lexicon for activation of the phonological
representation of the target words. Therefore, when the effectiveness of syllabic cue and
semantic cue is compared, syllabic cue is empirical to have an advantage since semantic cue
does not have the summation effect as it just supplies semantic information to the semantic
system. Thus, in order to assess the summation hypothesis, the third objective of this study is
to compare the effectiveness of syllabic cues with semantic cues in aiding word retrieval for
Cantonese aphasic patients.
However, it should be noted that not all Cantonese syllables are embedded with
semantic information about the whole word. As the final syllable of the above example, it is
clear that cbean' does not have strong relation with 'iron5. Thus, when thefinalsyllable is
given as cue, no relevant perhaps even irrelevant semantic information is conveyed. The
same is true in the opposite situation. For another example M& 'bread', the first syllable
means noodles, which just has some but not strong semantic relation with bread for that they
are both some kind of food only. Therefore, the degree of semantic relatedness of Cantonese
syllables associated with the whole words differs, such that some syllables have strong
semantic relation with the whole words, while others have some or none. With such a unique
characteristic, the fourth objective of this study is to compare the cueing effectiveness of
7
syllabic cues associated with different degree of semantic relations to the whole words.
In brief, there were altogether four objectives in this study. Firstly, it was to find out
which one of the five classes of associates, i.e., superordinate, attribute, contrast coordinate,
function associate & functional context, is the most effective as semantic cue. Secondly, it
was to compare the effectiveness of initial syllable and final syllable in aiding word retrieval
in Cantonese aphasic patients. Thirdly, this study was to compare the effectiveness of syllabic
cue and semantic cue in aiding word retrieval for Cantonese aphasic patients to assess the
summation hypothesis. Finally, it was to compare the cueing effectiveness of syllabic cues as
a function of different degrees of semantic relations to the whole words.
For the last objective, problems arise when the syllable given is associated with
homophonic morphemes, as it will be quite difficult to determine the degree of semantic
relatedness associated in a syllable to the whole word. For example, the bisyllabic word '$=|
H ' means camera, while the first syllable can mean photo, want and award. With this case, if
the aphasic regards thefirstsyllable as photo, strong semantic information is conveyed, while
there is none if he takes the other meanings. Since whether a syllable is semantically related
to the whole word is quite ambiguous, it was necessary to conduct a survey using normal
subjects to find out the degree of semantic relatedness of the first syllable and the final
syllable to the whole word for the stimuli used in this study.
8
Method
Subjects
Five Cantonese-speaking aphasic patients (three with anomia, one with
transcortical sensory and one with Broca's aphasia) were recruited as subjects in this study. A
Cantonese version of the Western Aphasia Battery (CAB) was used to determine their aphasic
types (Yiu, 1992). Subject information and their CAB results are presented in Table 1.
Table 1. Subject information and CAB results
Subject Sex Age Handedness Education level
Etiology
Time post onset
CHL
LLM
F
M
48
26
R
R
Form 3
Form 2
Left CVA
3 yr5 mo
Left cerebral
6yr9mo
embolism, AVM
MTK
M
36
R
Form 5
Left CVA
CCK
M
36
R
CML
F
43
R
Diagnosis AQ
(CAB)
Transcortical
60.8
sensory
Broca's
54.6
6yr5 mo
Anomia
65.2
Higher diploma Left CVA
8 mo
Anomia
91.8
Form 7
2yr5mo
Anomia
70.1
Left CVA
CVA - Cerebral Vascular Accident; AQ - Aphasia quotient
Subject selection
For inclusion in the study, subjects should meet the criteria stated in
Table 2.
Table2. Subject selection criteria
Inclusionary criteria
•
Time post-onset: at least two months
•
•
•
•
•
•
Expressive language ability: prominent
•
word-finding difficulty
Receptive language ability: good to mildly
•
impaired
Native language: Cantonese
Alert, cooperative, and medically stable
Failed to name at least 50% of the stimuli in two
times or more out of three pretests.
Exclusionary criteria
With history of premorbid articulation
deficit
Ostensible apraxic and dysarthric
elements
With visual and hearing defects
Besides, pretests on the patients' naming performances on the stimuli were administered
Patients were required to name all the stimuli in three sessions, which were done within a
week. On each trial in these pretests, patients were allowed afive-secondperiod to respond to
each stimulus. After that, no feedback on patients5 responses was given and another stimulus
would be presented. Thefive-secondresponse period was based on Brookshire (1971), as
reported by Li & Williams (1990), that aphasics demonstrated improvement in naming task
from three tofiveseconds of additional exposure and after that their performance would
plateau. Only patients who failed to name at least 50% of the stimuli two times or more out of
the three pretests were selected as subjects.
Stimuli
The stimuli were 80 black-and-white line drawings of common objects for local
Cantonese. They were of uniform size and format,fittingon 5 x 8 inches sheet. All of the
object names were bisyllabic. The stimuli reached naming agreements of 80%fromsixteen
normal subjects.
Procedure
The items that a subject failed to name two times or more out of the three
pretests were used as stimuli for that subject. The items were then divided intofiveblocks,
each assigned under a cueing condition: semantic cue, initial syllable cue,finalsyllable cue,
phonetic component cue and signific component cue (the last two conditions were for the
purpose of another study). The conditions were rotated across the item blocks so that every
stimulus underwent all thefivecueing conditions. This way, order effect was eliminated and
the effectiveness of each cue could be compared For the semantic cueing condition, the five
semantic dimensions presented were also rotated to eliminate the order effect for
10
investigation of the cueing effectiveness. Table 3 illustrates the order of cueing assignment
and semantic dimension presentation.
Table3. Order of cue assignment and semantic dimension presentation
Item Block Session 1 Session 2 Session 3 Session 4 Session 5
1
Semantic
Initial
Signific
Final
Phonetic
2
Initial
Signific
Final
Phonetic
Semantic
3
Signific
Final
Phonetic
Semantic Initial
4
Final
Phonetic
Semantic Initial
Signific
5
Phonetic
Semantic Initial
Signific
Final
Session Order of Semantic dimension presented
1
Contrast coordinate, Attribute, Superordinate, Function associate, Functional context
2
Attribute, Superordinate, Function associate, Functional context, Contrast coordinate
3
Superordinate, Function associate, Functional context, Contrast coordinate, Attribute
4
Function associate, Functional context, Contrast coordinate, Attribute, Superordinate
5
Functional context, Contrast coordinate, Attribute, Superordinate, Function associate
During task administration, the stimuli were presented in the predetermined order according
to the cue types. When the subject failed to name an item withinfiveseconds, the
corresponding cue type would be presented. Subjects had anotherfiveseconds to respond to
the cues. No feedback on the subjects' responses would be provided. All the procedures were
tape-recorded with the subjects5 consents. Thefiveblocks were completed infivesessions
within three weeks and each week with a maximum of two sessions to avoid subjects'
memorization of the stimuli.
Scoring responses
All responses to cueing were scored as correct or incorrect. Since Li
and Williams (1990) stated that articulatoiy difficulties should be separatedfromtrue
word-retrieval problems, normal responses and phonemic paraphasias were scored as correct.
ll
While other responses like semantic paraphasias, neologisms, circumlocutions,
perseverations and no response were scored as incorrect.
Survey on semantic relatedness
Ten normal subjects were recruited to participate in the
survey. Subject information was presented in Appendix 1. The subjects were required to
determine the degree of semantic relatedness of thefirstsyllable and the final syllable to the
whole word for all the 80 stimuli used in this study. The targets were auditorily presented to
the subjects and they were required to give a rating on their relatedness, with the most related
ones have rating of 4 and those least related assigned rating of 1, while 2 and 3 were
intermediates between the two extremes. The stimuli were divided into three groups for later
analysis, with the mean rating from the ten subjects ranged from 1.0-2.0 grouped as low
semantic relatedness, 2.1-3.0 grouped as medium semantic relatedness and 3.1-4.0 as high
semantic relatedness. The numbers of stimuli rated as having initial syllables of low, medium
and high semantic relatedness to the whole words were 34,33 and 13 respectively, while that
for thefinalsyllables were 36,37 and 7. Results of the survey are illustrated in Appendix 2a
and 2b.
Reliability
To assess scoring reliability, 50% of the subjects' responses were scored by
an independent year four speech and hearing sciences student. Interjudge reliability was
found to be 98%. All of the disagreements were in phonetic transcriptions of the subjects'
phonemic paraphasias, which would not affect the correct or incorrect scoring of responses.
12
Results
Cueing effectiveness of the five semantic dimensions
The cueing effectiveness of thefivesemantic dimension was found in the order of
function associate (9.6%), functional context (9.0%)5 attribute (6.4%), superordinate (6.2%)
and contrast coordinate (2.6%). Statistical analysis using one-factor analysis of variance
(ANOVA) with repeated measures found that there was no significant difference between the
cueing effectiveness of the five semantic dimensions.
Cueing effectiveness of semantic cue and syllabic cue
The mean cueing effectiveness of semantic cue and syllabic cue from the five subjects
were found to be 28% and 59% respectively. The difference was statistically significant [F
(1,4) = 88.9814, p < 0.05]. More closely, the cueing effectiveness of semantic cue was
compared with the initial syllable cue and final syllable cue using McNemar's test. Results
revealed that there were statistical significant differences between the cueing effectiveness of
initial syllable cue and semantic cue in all thefivesubjects. While the cueing effectiveness of
final syllable cue and semantic cue was found to be significantly different in three of the
subjects, with the other two subjects demonstrated the same direction of results though they
are not significant statistically Table 4 summarizes the results.
13
Table 4. McNemar's test result on comparison of different cue types in all subjects
MTK
CHL
LLM
CML
CCK
Initial vs Semantic
significant
p < 0.00003
significant
p < 0.00003
significant
p = 0.00032
significant
p = 0.0013
significant
p = 0.0007
Final vs Semantic
significant
p = 0.1003
significant
p = 0.0014
Not
significant
significant
p = 0.0007
Not
significant
Initial vs Final
significant
p = 0.0003
significant
p = 0.00056
significant
p = 0.0001
Not
significant
significant
p = 0.0038
Cueing effectiveness of initial syllable andfinal syllable
The mean cueing effectiveness of initial syllable cue and final syllable cuefromthe five
subjects were found to be 79% and 45% respectively. Table 4 shows that the cueing
effectiveness of initial syllable cue was found to be significantly different from that of final
syllable cue in four of the subjects, with the initial syllable cues being more effective than the
final syllable cues, while the remaining subject demonstrated the same direction of results
though they are not significant statistically.
Cueing effectiveness ofsyllabic cues with low, medium and high semantic relatedness to
the whole words
The mean cueing effectiveness of syllabic cues with low, medium and high semantic
relatedness to the whole words from the five subjects were found to be 65%, 55% and 55%
respectively. No significant difference in naming performance was found as a function of
semantic relatedness.
Summary of findings
Syllabic cues in general were more effective than semantic cues in aiding word retrieval
14
While for the five semantic associates (superordinate, attribute, contrast coordinate, function
associate and functional context) in acting as semantic cues, they did not differ significantly.
For the two types of syllabic cues, initial syllable cues were more effective thanfinalsyllable
cues in assisting word retrieval. Finally, it was found that the cueing effectiveness for
syllables of low, medium and high semantic relatedness to the whole words do not differ
significantly.
Discussion
The results of this study suggested that syllabic cue was more beneficial than semantic
cue. It was consistent with previous studies on cueing in English and Japanese (Saito &
Takeda, 2001; Li & Williams, 1990; Pease & Goodglass, 1978; and Love & Webb, 1977).
The results of this study were also in line with previous studies that stimulus redundancy
improved naming performance and was superior to single cues presented one at a time, as
Cantonese syllables in general carry semantic information to the whole words while only
semantic information is conveyed by semantic cues (Huntley, Pindzola & Weidner, 1986;
Gardner; Weidner & Jinks, 1983). With the unique combination of phonological and semantic
information in Cantonese syllable cues, the 'summation hypothesis' of spoken word
production (Hillis & Caramazza, 1995) is supported.
Since the summation hypothesis put forth in the content of the logogen model, it is
interesting to explore whether other types of model can also account for the observations. In
15
the following, we show that the interactive activation model (Dell & O'Seaghdha, 1991) can
also explain the results. The model consists of three levels: semantic features, lexical nodes
and phonological nodes, with bi-directional activation between these levels. A bundle of
semantic features represent a concept. A lexical node is the semantic and syntactic
representation of an intended word. The phonological node contains the phonological form of
the selected lexicon. The model assumes that word retrieval failures occur when connections
between the semantic features and the lexical nodes are weakened, thus decreasing the
activation of the lexical nodes by semantic features. The lexical selection remains incomplete
and the activation of phonological nodes is less likely.
Semantic features
fj
Cj
*
Lexical nodes
Phonological nodes
A
fj
CJ
*
/
(^J)
{^J
{^J
Figure 1. An interactive activation model of language processing (Dell & O'Seaghdha, 1991).
T is the target lexical node. The dotted lines indicate the weakened connections.
To account for the superiority of syllable cues over semantic cues, one may hypothesize a
deficit in the form of weakened connection between semantic and lexical nodes. When
semantic cues are given, the selected semantic features are less likely to be able to activate
16
the target lexical nodes to the level for complete selection of the target lexicon. On the other
hand, syllabic cues may activate the phonological nodes directly. Since the connections
between phonological nodes and lexical nodes are intact, the activated phonological node will
then activate the target lexical node, which in turn activates all the phonological nodes
essential for the production of the target lexicon. In this way, the syllabic cues are more
effective than semantic cues in aiding word retrieval.
In brief, the results that Cantonese syllable cues were more effective than semantic cues
can be explained by the logogen model (Kay, Lesser, & Coltheart, 1992) and the interactive
activation model (Dell & O'Seaghdha, 1991).
Another finding of this study showed that the cueing effectiveness of the five semantic
associates did not differ significantly. This is in contrast with Saito & Takeda (2001). In their
study, the cueing effectiveness of superordinate and semantically characterizing or associated
words with the target as semantic cues in picture naming task were examined. They found
that semantic related cues were significantly more effective than superordinate as semantic
cues. They concluded that the semantic information supplied by superordinate shared many
of the semantic features with the target, which had already been activated by the picture. With
this reason, not just the medium cueing effectiveness of superordinate, but also that of the
attribute can be explained. Attribute mainly provides the information about the appearances
of the targets, for example, straight for ruler and with stripe for zebra, which again, are
17
already entailed in the pictures. Therefore, no additional information that the subjects needed
will be provided.
For the ineffectiveness of contrast coordinate, it is because it does not have direct
connection with the target. The only feature they shared is that they belong to the same
category, i.e., the superordinate, while it has been suggested that superordinate itself was not
a very effective semantic cue. Moreover, 'the most common sort of semantic error aphasic
patients make in picture naming is a co-ordinate' (Howard et al., 1985, p.77), which is also
true in the subjects included in this study. Therefore, the use of contrast coordinate as
semantic cues will not provide any additional information that the patients needed.
For the function associates and functional contexts, the semantic information supplied
are not entailed in the pictures, for example, to keep foodfresh(function associate) and
placed in the kitchen (functional context) for the target refrigerator. Therefore, they are most
probably the semantic information missed by the patients after presentation of the pictures.
Providing them as semantic cues thus can activate the target stored in the mental lexicon.
Consequently, they are the most effective semantic cues within the five classes of semantic
associates.
Overall, although no difference among the five types of semantic cues was found in the
present experiment, it should be pointed out that the direction is compatible with previous
findings, and conclusively, the effectiveness of semantic cues is determined by whether they
18
can provide the information missed by the patients in retrieval of the target lexicon.
Another finding of this study showed that initial syllable cue was more effective than
final syllable cue in facilitating word retrieval. The result has implications for lexical
representations in lexical retrieval models. Two interactive activation frameworks for lexical
processing in Chinese proposed by Taft & Zhu (1994) and Taft, Liu & Zhu (1999) are
evaluated. As it will show, both models have difficulties in accounting for the observation.
The multilevel interaction activation framework proposed by Taft & Zhu (1994) consists
of four levels: semantic level, whole word level, morpheme and submorphemic level, in
which activation passing up and back down the different levels. In this model, binding words
like Jfl;§: /mo 55 t B 555/'modern5 and compounds like l i f t ly&n tohil 'modern' are
represented differently. Compounds have representations at the morpheme level, in which
each morpheme has connection with the semantic level, while binding words exists as whole
words and cannot be separated to have representations at the morpheme level and so the
constituent syllables are represented at the submorphemic level. Figure 2 shows a part of the
model that corresponds to the auditory comprehension and naming process with the examples
IPH /mo 55 t *e355/ 'modern5 and l i f t /jin22 toijil 'modern5.
19
Meaning
Whole word level
Morpheme level
Submorphemic level
Figure 2. A part of the multilevel interactive activation model (Taft & Zhu, 1994). It
corresponds to the auditory comprehension and naming process given the examples of J§if£
/m o 55 t B ij55/ 'modern' and gift /jin22 toi22/ 'modern'.
Taft & Zhu (1994) performed a character naming task in Chinese, in which subjects were
required to name the character presented as quickly as they could. The stimuli were either the
initial orfinalcharacter of binding words (e.g. ffig[ 'earthworm') and compounds (e.g. fit
fg 'lovers'). They found that the initial characters of binding words were pronounced
significantly faster than that of thefinalcharacters, while there was no significant difference
between that of the compounds. They suggested that the initial syllables of binding words
were independent representations that acted as access codes and were the stems of the whole
20
words in the phonological representations, while there was none in the compounds. Therefore,
the initial syllables of binding words were pronounced faster than thefinalsyllables. Their
findings support a part of the result in the present study since both binding words and
compounds are included as stimuli. The model can account for the superiority of initial
syllable cues tofinalsyllables cues in binding words stimuli since the initial syllables are
access codes of the whole words, they are closely linked to the whole words so activation of
whole target words are more likely thanfinalsyllables. However, the model can not explain
the results on compound words stimuli, since the initial syllable andfinalsyllable are linked
independently to the whole word level in the model, initial syllable cue andfinalsyllable cue
should be of equal effectiveness in activating the whole target word. Nevertheless, the present
study found that initial syllable cue was more effective thanfinalsyllable cue even in
compounds.
Taft, Liu & Zhu (1999) proposed a different version of the interactive activation model
where lemma level existed and there are no whole word level present. Figure 3 shows the
model.
21
Semantic units
Lemmas
Phonological units
Figure 3. A part of the interactive activation model (Taft, Liu & Zhu, 1999). It corresponds to
the auditory comprehension and naming process given the examples of H Jh / ma23 s ee n 221
'immediately5 and H | t / ma23 tsttn 35 / 'horseshoe5.
The model consists of three levels of representation: the semantic units, lemmas and
phonological units. The lemmas are way-stations that represent the semantic and
phonological information of the intended words. When the intended word consisted of more
than one syllable, the linkages between the lemmas and phonological units are ordered so thai
the word is comprehended or pronounced with syllables in right order. The model does not
have whole word representation and all the constituent syllables of multisyllabic words are
represented and linked independently to the lemmas, so initial syllable cues and final syllable
cues should be of equal effectiveness in activating the target word. Moreover, since there is
no representation of whole word level, the initial syllables can not act as access codes for the
22
stem of the whole words and thus the model is not able account for the finding in question.
Modifications to the models are needed in order to account for the results of this study.
We suggest that (1) whole word representation exist for both compounds and binding words,
and (2) initial syllables of all the words in the whole word level, including both binding
words and compounds, are access codes of the whole words. These suggestions are consistent
with Zhou & Marslen-Wilson (1994) and Packard (1999). Initial syllables, being the access
codes, are more closely linked to the whole words so activation of whole target words are
more likely than final syllables. Since lexical access proceeds from initial to final syllables,
initial syllable cues given can initiate the searching process and a number of possible lexicons
sharing the same initial syllable with the target word will be selected. In contrast, when final
syllable cues are given, the searching process will be difficult to initiate since access is from
initial to final syllables. Therefore, initial syllables are more beneficial than final syllables in
cueing.
Another finding of this study showed that the cueing effectiveness for syllables of low,
medium and high semantic relatedness to the whole words did not differ significantly. Since
Cantonese syllabic cues facilitate word retrieval by summating the semantic information and
phonological information to access the lexical phonological representations for output, it is
assumed that syllabic cues with high semantic relatedness to the whole words should be more
effective than those with medium semantic relatedness, which in turn will be more effective
23
than those with low semantic relatedness.
Plausible explanations are considered here. Firstly, as discussed earlier, Cantonese
syllable cues facilitate word retrieval by two routes. The direct, non-lexical route from
phonological input lexicon to phonological output is responsible for supplying phonological
information, while the lexical routefromphonological input lexicon through semantic system
to phonological output lexicon is responsible for transmitting semantic information
embedded in the syllables to retrieve the target words. It is possible that the direct,
non-lexical route plays a major role for the operation of the syllabic cues, while the lexical
route plays a minor role. As a result, whatever the degree of semantic relatedness the syllabic
cues bore, it is masked by the powerful effect of the direct route.
The other possible explanation has to do with the degree of versatility that Cantonese
syllables demonstrate in relation to other morphemes/syllables (Norman, 1989). Syllables are
considered versatile if they allow combination with many other syllables with relative ease to
form meaningful words, while syllables are restricted if they can only occur in a small
number of contexts. For instance, the syllable /tuW H 'electricity' can combine with many
other syllables to form meaningful compounds like HJg 'telephone', fijlf 'computer', f l
M 'television', IgM 'torch', it is considered versatile. For some other syllables like /phe55/
&% it does not have meaning by itself, while it can combine with one other syllable /ph& iy
Jrf 'board5 to form a meaningful word t # P 'cards', these kinds of syllables are very
24
restricted. Since versatile syllables can combine with many other syllables to form
compounds, they have a lot of competitors when they are given as syllabic cues to aid word
retrieval, while restricted syllables should have fewer competitors. Therefore, restricted
syllables can be more effective than versatile syllables in aiding word retrieval. However, we
should note that many syllables with high semantic relatedness to the whole words are
versatile syllables, just like the above example, all the words contained the syllable /thW H
'electricity5 are electrical appliances, while many syllables with low semantic relatedness to
the whole words are restricted syllables, again with the example n ^ ^ 'cards'. Consequently,
with the effect of versatility, syllables of low semantic relatedness to the whole words can be
even more effective than those syllables high in semantic relatedness.
Conclusion
This study compared the effectiveness of different kinds of cues in aiding word retrieval
in aphasic patients. Four major findings were obtained: (1) syllabic cues were more effective
than semantic cues; (2) there was no significant difference in the cueing effectiveness of the
five semantic associates; (3) initial syllable cues were more beneficial than final syllable cues;
and (4) syllables with different degree of semantic relatedness to the whole words did not
have significant difference in cueing effectiveness. Results supported the summation
hypothesis proposed by Hillis & Caramazza (1995). Modifications to lexical processing
model were proposed to account for the findings.
25
In addition to theoretical contribution, the presentfindingsalso have clinical
implications. Regarding thefindingsthat different types of cues had different cueing
effectiveness, a systematic design of cueing hierarchy may be developed for the use in
assessment and treatment of aphasia. Cueing hierarchy should be in the order containing least
to the most relevant information of the target words and the suggested hierarchy follows the
order of contrast coordinate, superordinate, attribute, functional context, function associate,
final syllable and initial syllable. Such a cueing hierarchy can give insight into the severity of
the patients' naming difficulties, as the one lacked the more information for word retrieval,
the more severe his/her word retrieval difficulty will be.
Finally, several limitations are noted in this study. We suggest that in further studies,
more subjects should be included to allow subject variability. Moreover, a survey on
determination of the most appropriate semantic associates for each target stimuli should be
conducted so as to obtain a high agreement on whether a particular item fitted most to the
semantic classes. Lastly, the versatility of the stimuli should be controlled in the investigation
of the cueing effectiveness of syllables with different degree of semantic relatedness to the
whole words.
Acknowledgement
I would like to express my gratitude to:
Dr. Sampo Law for her supervision and support;
26
Mr. Man-Tak Leung for assisting me to recruit the subjects;
My dear classmates for their encouragement and comments on this study.
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29
Appendix 1. Subjeet information on survey
Subject
Age
Sex Education level
1
22
F
University, Year 4
2
17
M
Form 6
3
18
M
Form 7
4
18
F
Form 7
5
22
F
University, Year 4
6
22
F
University, Year 4
7
22
M
University graduate
8
22
M
University, Year 4
9
52
F
Form 5
10
16
M
Form 5
30
Appendix 2a. Results of survey on semantic relatedness of initial syllables to whole words
Initial syllables with low
semantic relatedness to the
whole words
Mean rating 1.0-2.0
Stimuli Mean rating on
initial syllables
1.30
1.00
1.20
1.70
Wr
1.40
1.00
Um
1.50
1.30
rJJP
1.10
1.00
&±
1.70
1.50
**s
1.50
1.60
1.20
i$fc
1.20
rTfvR
1.20
1.60
Wi
m^
Initial syllables with medium
semantic relatedness to the
whole words
Mean rating 2.1-3.0
Stimuli
|Mean rating on
initial syllables
2.70
tin
mi
mm
2.90
2.50
2.90
2.60
r^
2.70
3.00
2.90
2.60
2.90
2.60
«j
mm
f*sa.m
SrfJ
&3fc
mm
mm
im
1.60
m
m^
m\
WE.
rm
M
1.70
1.10
1.10
1.30
1.30
1.20
1.30
1.10
1.90
1.90
2.00
1.80
1.80
2.00
2.00
Initial syllables with high
semantic relatedness to the
whole words
Mean rating 3.1-4.0
Stimuli [Mean rating on
initial syllables
2.70
3.00
2.90
2.80
2.10
2.20
2.30
2.40
2.10
2.20
2.30
2.30
m
w.
31
3.40
mi
3.30
WM
3.60
3.50
.10
3.10
3.10
3.10
2.90
4Si
m
m
3.00
2.80
2.80
3.00
2.80
2.70
#m
5.50
3.20
2.60
mi
K4
$&
2.70
2.70
M
V&
3.30
3.40
3.30
11 MAI im
Appendix 2b. Results of survey on semantic relatedness of final syllables to whole words
Final syllables with low
semantic relatedness to the
whole words
Mean rating 1.0-2.0
Stimuli
mm
$3ltt P ?
WE.
1.10
mm
mm
1.80
1.90
m^
T^ffHE
mm
1
Sin
fRPE.
mi
mm
W£
w±
mm
Sfi
1
Mean rating on
final syllables
1.70
1.30
1.10
1.30
1.60
1.60
1.30
1.60
1.10
1.60
1.00
1.50
1.60
1.70
1.10
1.30
1.20
1.20
1.50
1.70
1.40
1.20
1.10
1.40
1.20
1.50
1.00
1.40
1.70
W.W
>S&-*J~
it±
W¥IP#
im
mm
PM
«*(-
mm
mm
m^
mm
m\
mm
Final syllables with medium
semantic relatedness to the
whole words
Mean rating 2.1-3.0
Stimuli
Mean rating on
final syllables
2.50
2.20
Final syllables with high
semantic relatedness to the
whole words
Mean rating 3.1-4.0
Stimuli [Mean rating on
final syllables
3.60
3.50
2.10
m&
mm
2.50
2.70
3.30
m
mm
2.60
2.80
mm
2.80
3.00
nm
2.60
2.80
2.67
m\i
±m
3.00
2.70
mm
2.50
2.80
2.80
2.50
2.60
2.50
2.60
2.90
2.80
2.90
2.70
2.70
2.80
2.50
2.20
2.10
!
r^M
I
!
I
&s
mi
mm
mi
1\M
1
m_
~2lb~
r#0
2.30
32
mi
3.20
3.20
3.10
3.10