050.105 Introduction to Cognitive Neuropsychology Readings Study Guide #8: Rapp, Benzing, & Caramazza (1997)
Rapp. B., Benzing, L., & Caramazza, A. (1997). The autonomy of lexical orthography. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 14, 71-104. Notes (1) The conclusions in this article are drawn via a long and careful chain of reasoning. Work to understand the reasoning, reading the article several times if necessary. The questions below are meant to help focus your attention on the important points in the article. (2) There is an error in Table 5 (p. 90) and Table 7 (p. 92). In Table 5 the example of a SEMANTIC 1 + SEMANTIC 2 error has a correct response for SEMANTIC 2 (thread); what should be shown is a semantic error different from the SEMANTIC 1 error (e.g., needle). In Table 7, the error is the same: a correct response for SEMANTIC 2. Definitions of Technical Terms (see also the course Glosssary) allophone. A particular (phonetic) form of a phoneme. For example, the p sound in „spit‟ and the p sound in „pit‟ are different, although we aren‟t usually aware of this. The two sounds both count as the phoneme /p/, but are different allophones of that phoneme. CVA. CerebroVascular Accident = stroke neologism. Literally, new word. In cognitive neuropsychology, a written or spoken response by a patient that is not a real word, such as /blegIt/. phonetic. Having to do with the specific forms of speech sounds. For example, the various allophones of a phoneme are phonetically different, even though they are all instances of the same phoneme. Contrasts with phonological, which refers to levels of representation at which phonemes are specified. A phonological word representation specifies a sequence of phonemes (e.g., /dIg/), whereas a phonetic representation specifies the specific phonetic form taken by the phonemes. post-lexical. Having to do with language production processes occurring after the retrieval of a phonological or orthographic lexical representation. prosodic. Having to do with the patterns of stress or intonation, as opposed to the specific phonemes, in spoken language production. segmental. Having to do with the phonological segments – that is, phonemes – making up a word.
Study Questions 1. What is the basic question addressed in the study, and what possible answers are considered? (pp. 71-73) 2. Why does a pattern of better written than spoken picture naming seem to support the orthographic autonomy hypothesis and argue against phonological mediation? 3. Why is a finding of better written than spoken picture naming not sufficient by itself to support orthographic autonomy and argue against phonological mediation? What must be established about the locus of the spoken production impairment before a case of better written than spoken naming can be taken as evidence for orthographic autonomy and against phonological mediation? (pp. 73 76) 4. What specific pattern(s) of spoken naming errors are needed to establish the necessary locus of impairment? (pp. 76-80) 5. What is the „phonological mediation + multiple retrieval attempts‟ hypothesis? How could this hypothesis be ruled out? (pp. 80-81) 6. What do Rapp et al. conclude about the locus of PW‟s deficit(s) in spoken picture naming? (pp. 81-86) 7. What do Rapp et al. conclude about the locus of PW‟s deficit(s) in written picture naming? (pp. 81-87) 8. What predictions do Rapp et al. derive from the phonological mediation and orthographic autonomy hypotheses? (pp. 89-91) 9. Why do Rapp et al. consider instances in which different semantic errors occur in spoken and written naming – for example, p(blouse) → “sweater” (spoken) and SKIRT (written) as evidence for orthographic autonomy? Could the phonological mediation hypotheses account for errors of this sort? 10. What results relevant to those predictions were obtained in Task 1? Why don‟t these results settle the orthographic autonomy vs. phonological mediation question? (p. 91) 11. Why do Rapp et al. group misspellings that resemble the correct response with correct responses, in essence counting these misspellings as correct responses?; Why do they group misspellings that resemble the spelling for a word semantic related to the correct response with semantic errors? (pp. 89-97) 12. What strategy do Rapp et al. adopt in Tasks 2-4 for evaluating the possibility of phonological mediation + instability? (p. 91)
13. What are the most important results from Tasks 2-4? What do these results have to say about orthographic autonomy vs. phonological mediation + instability? (pp. 91-97) 14. What is the reasoning behind the analysis Rapp et al. describe on pp. 96-97. What were the results, and how do Rapp et al. interpret these results? 15. On pp. 98-99 Rapp et al. consider one last version of a phonological mediation hypothesis. What is this version, and how do Rapp et al. argue against it. 16. What is the distinction between obligatory and optional phonological recoding? Which form of phonological recoding were Rapp et al. arguing against in the article? What do they have to say about the other form?