Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Syracuse University, NY.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2024 Sep 12;67(9):3133-3147. doi: 10.1044/2024_JSLHR-23-00168. Epub 2024 Aug 28.
Persons with aphasia (PWA) experience differences in attention after stroke, potentially impacting cognitive/language performance. This secondary analysis investigated physiologically measured vigilant attention during linguistic and nonlinguistic processing in PWA and control participants.
To evaluate performance and attention in a language task, seven PWA read sentences aloud (linguistic task) and were compared to a previous data set of 10 controls and 10 PWA. To evaluate performance and attention in a language-independent task, 11 controls and nine PWA completed the Bivalent Shape Task (nonlinguistic task). Continuous electroencephalogram (EEG) data were collected during each session. A previously validated EEG algorithm classified vigilant-attention state for each experiment trial into high, moderate, distracted, or no attention. Dependent measures were task accuracy and amount of time spent in each attention state (measured by the number of trials).
PWA produced significantly more errors than controls on the linguistic task, but groups performed similarly on the nonlinguistic task. During the linguistic task, controls spent significantly more time than PWA in a moderate-attention state, but no statistically significant differences were found between groups for other attention states. For the nonlinguistic task, amount of time controls and PWA spent in each attention state was more evenly distributed. When directly comparing attention patterns between linguistic and nonlinguistic tasks, PWA showed significantly more time in a high-attention state during the linguistic task as compared to the nonlinguistic task; however, controls showed no significant differences between linguistic and nonlinguistic tasks.
This study provides new evidence that PWA experience a heightened state of vigilant attention when language processing demands are higher (during a linguistic task) than when language demands are lower (during a nonlinguistic task). Collectively, results of this study suggest that when processing language, PWA may allocate more attentional resources than when completing other kinds of cognitive tasks.
失语症患者（PWA）在中风后注意力存在差异，这可能会影响认知/语言表现。本研究对 PWA 和对照组参与者在语言和非语言处理过程中的生理测量警觉注意力进行了二次分析。
为了评估语言任务中的表现和注意力，7 名 PWA 大声朗读句子（语言任务），并与之前的一组 10 名对照组和 10 名 PWA 的数据进行比较。为了评估独立于语言的任务中的表现和注意力，11 名对照组和 9 名 PWA 完成了双价形状任务（非语言任务）。在每次实验中都采集连续脑电图（EEG）数据。一个经过验证的 EEG 算法将警觉注意力状态的每个实验试验分类为高、中、分散或无注意力。因变量为任务准确性和每个注意力状态下花费的时间（通过试验次数衡量）。
PWA 在语言任务上的错误明显多于对照组，但两组在非语言任务上的表现相似。在语言任务中，对照组在中度注意状态下花费的时间明显多于 PWA，但两组在其他注意状态下没有统计学上的显著差异。对于非语言任务，对照组和 PWA 在每个注意力状态下花费的时间分布更加均匀。当直接比较语言和非语言任务之间的注意力模式时，与非语言任务相比，PWA 在语言任务中处于高度注意状态的时间明显更长；然而，对照组在语言和非语言任务之间没有表现出显著差异。
这项研究提供了新的证据，表明当语言处理要求更高（在语言任务中）时，PWA 会处于更高的警觉注意力状态，而当语言要求较低（在非语言任务中）时，他们会处于较低的警觉注意力状态。总的来说，这项研究的结果表明，当处理语言时，PWA 可能会比完成其他类型的认知任务分配更多的注意力资源。
