The lexical feature of imageability in the mental lexicon of people with aphasia

Erdeljac, Vlasta and Sekulić, Martina and Willer-Gold, Jana and Biočina, Zdravka and Čolović, Nina and Dragojević, Ema and Feldman, Eva and Jelovac, Tara and Masnikosa, Irina and Rosandić, Dorotea. (2014). The lexical feature of imageability in the mental lexicon of people with aphasia. Govor : časopis za fonetiku, 31(1). pp. 29-47. ISSN 0352-7565

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Abstract

The lexical feature of imageability is a semantic category of a word which refers to the greater or smaller degree of picturability of a lexeme. While high imageable words are easier to imagine as they evoke a relatively clear mental picture, low imageable words are harder to imagine as they are more abstract. In this paper, we will present the results of the research of lexical processing of spoken and written word in relation to the feature of imageability conducted on the sample of 25 people with aphasia and on 21 participants of the control group. The study investigates whether there is a significant difference in the semantic processing of high and low imageable words in people with aphasia compared to the participants of the control group when presented with a visual or auditive stimulus. The research is motivated by two hypotheses. Firstly, the greater asymmetry in semantic processing of high and low imageable words will be found in people with aphasia compared to the participants of the control group; and secondly, the processing of low imageable words will be less successful in both groups. The research was conducted on the basis of three tests designed to examine the processing of the lexical feature of imageability: Auditory Synonym Judgements, Written Synonym Judgements and Word Semantic Association from the battery of tests PALPA (Psycholinguistic Assessments of Language Processing in Aphasia, Kay at al., 1992), translated into Croatian language and adapted for Croatian speakers. Both hypotheses were confirmed by the results of quantitative (statistical) and qualitative (linguistic – semantic) analysis. Modality dependent pathways of mental processing were interpreted according to the modular model on which PALPA tests were based contextualized within dual-coding theory and context availability theory. The problems with the recognition of the low imageable words are caused by the difficulties in finding appropriate semantic representations in the mental lexicons of speakers. (Balota et al., 2006) This study examines to which extent the abstractness of a word influences its recognition as well as explores how the imageability feature is incorporated in the processing of meaning in the mental lexicon.

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