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  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Time reference in aphasia: are there differences between tenses and aphasia fluency type? A systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis
    Time reference is used to build the temporal framework of discourse and is essential in ensuring efficient communication. Several studies have reported time reference deficits in fluent and non-fluent aphasia and have shown that tenses (past, present, future) are not all impaired to the same extent. However, there is little consensus on the dissociations between tenses, and the question of the influence of the type of aphasia (fluent vs. non-fluent) on time reference remains open. Therefore, a systematic review and an individual participant data meta-analysis (or mega-analysis) were conducted to determine (1) whether one tense is more impaired than another in fluent and non-fluent aphasia and, if so, (2) which task and speaker-related factors moderate tense effects. The systematic review resulted in 35 studies reporting the performance in time reference of 392 participants. The mega-analysis was then performed on 23 studies for a total of 232 participants and showed an alteration of past tense compared to present and future tenses in both types of aphasia. The analysis also showed a task and an age effect on time reference but no gender effect, independently of tenses. These results add to our knowledge of time reference in aphasia and have implications for future therapies.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Le test de compréhension de l’IRonie et des Requêtes Indirectes – version courte (IRRI-C) : développement, validité de contenu et données normatives préliminaires.
    (2024) ;
    Maud Champagne-Lavau
    ;
    Background: Following a traumatic brain injury or right hemisphere damage, many patients have difficulty understanding non-literal language. However, tools for assessing this disorder are sorely lacking in French. The existing tests (in particular the IRonie and Indirect Request comprehension test - IRRI) also have certain limitations, including the time-consuming administration. Objectives: The present study aims to present (1) the construction, (2) the content validity, and (3) the preliminary normative data of the short version of the Irony and Indirect Requests comprehension test (IRRI-C). Methods: (1) To select the twelve items of each IRRI-C task, difficulty and discrimination indices, item-total score correlations, and differences in correct responses between patients and control participants were calculated from the responses of 33 brain-damaged participants and 102 control subjects to the long version (36 items) of the IRRI test. (2) The tool was then given to seven speech and language therapists and neuropsychologists, who used a questionnaire to assess the clarity and relevance of the IRRI-C in assessing the target construct. (3) Finally, the IRRI-C was administered to 121 control subjects aged between 20 and 65 years to provide preliminary normative data. Results: (1) The twelve stimuli with the best difficulty and discrimination indices, item-total score correlations, and the greatest differences between patients and control participants were selected for each task. A PowerPoint presentation, a scoring sheet, and an introduction and scoring booklet were produced and made available to clinicians on the Internet. (2) Questionnaires on construct validity showed that the IRRI-C was highly relevant for assessing the target construct and that the introductory booklet, instructions, and scoring guide were very clear. (3) Norms stratified according to the variables of interest manipulated in the tasks (context, executive demand, and presence of markers) were calculated as percentiles. Conclusion: The IRRI-C fills an important gap in French-language pragmatics assessment tools. Its shorter format and stratification of norms make it a tool better adapted to clinical reality and conducive to the development of diagnostic hypotheses and therapeutic goals. Future improvements, including validation in different populations and a finer-grained analysis of production during scoring, will further enhance its clinical relevance.
  • Publication
    Restriction temporaire
    Evaluation du marquage grammatical de la référence temporelle en français : étude psycholinguistique auprès de personnes atteintes de maladie d’Alzheimer
    (Neuchâtel : Université de Neuchâtel, 2024) ;
    Introduction : La vie humaine est constituée d’une succession d’événements indissociables du temps dans lequel ils s’inscrivent. Dès lors, l’être humain est capable de percevoir le temps, d’y naviguer et de l’exprimer. En linguistique, la référence temporelle permet l’expression du temps à travers le langage, notamment grâce aux concepts de temps et d’aspect grammatical. Elle permet en effet d’exprimer quand un événement a eu lieu par le marquage grammatical du temps et comment celui-ci s’est produit grâce au marquage grammatical de l’aspect. En français, comme dans d’autres langues, cette capacité à exprimer le temps à travers le langage se réalise en grande partie à travers la flexion verbale. La référence temporelle peut être atteinte dans le cadre de certaines pathologies. C’est notamment le cas dans la Maladie d’Alzheimer (MA) dans laquelle des difficultés à percevoir le temps et à y naviguer (liées en partie à une atteinte progressive de la mémoire épisodique) coexistent avec des difficultés de flexion verbale. L’origine des difficultés de flexion verbale dans cette maladie reste toutefois peu étudiée. Objectifs : Cette thèse porte sur le marquage grammatical de la référence temporelle chez des personnes francophones présentant un trouble neurocognitif (TNC) de type MA. Elle vise trois objectifs principaux, à savoir (1) déterminer si le temps (présent, passé, futur) et l’aspect grammatical (perfectif, imperfectif) constituent des accords difficiles à produire en français pour cette population, (2) si tel est le cas, investiguer la ou les sources de ces difficultés de marquage grammatical de la référence temporelle, et (3) évaluer si le profil mnésique et exécutif des participants a un effet sur leur capacité à marquer morphologiquement le temps et l’aspect grammatical. Méthode : Vingt et un participants francophones présentant une MA et 21 participants sans TNC, appariés en âge et niveau d’éducation, ont été recrutés. Des tâches de flexion verbale de complétion de phrases lacunaires, des tâches discursives ainsi que des tâches évaluant la perception du temps et la capacité à y naviguer leur ont été proposées. Plusieurs tests d’évaluation des fonctions cognitives (ex. mémoire de travail, fonctions exécutives, mémoire épisodique) ont également été employés. Les données ont été analysées à l’aide de modèles statistiques à effets mixtes. Résultats : Les analyses ont mis en évidence la présence de difficultés à marquer le temps et l’aspect grammatical chez les personnes présentant une MA et ce, aussi bien dans des tâches de complétion de phrases lacunaires, que dans des tâches discursives. Ces difficultés sont notamment liées au profil cognitif des participants et en particulier à leurs compétences en mémoire de travail verbale, en flexibilité mentale et en inhibition. Le type de tâche utilisé semble toutefois également influencer la production de la référence temporelle dans cette population. Introduction: Human life consists of a succession of events that are inseparable from the time in which they occurred. Human beings are then able to perceive, navigate and express time. Time reference is the linguistic expression of time. It allows us to express time through language using the concepts of tense and grammatical aspect. More precisely, time reference expresses when the event happened, with tense, and how it happened, with aspect. In French, as in tensed languages, time reference is essentially made by verbal inflection. This ability can be altered in some pathologies. This may be the case in Alzheimer's disease (AD), where difficulties in time reference coexist with difficulties in time perception and navigation (partly due to the progressive loss of episodic memory). However, the origin of verb inflection difficulties in this disease remains poorly studied. Aims: This thesis investigates the grammatical marking of time reference in French speakers with AD. It has three main objectives: (1) to investigate whether tense (past, present, future) and grammatical aspect (perfective, imperfective) are difficult to produce in French in this population, (2) if so, to investigate the source(s) of this time reference deficit, and (3) to assess whether the participants' cognitive profile (memory and executive functions) affects their ability to grammatically mark tense and aspect. Method: Twenty-one French-speaking participants with AD and 21 age- and education-matched controls took part in this study. Participants were given sentence completion tasks and discursive tasks to assess verbal inflection, as well as tasks focusing on time perception and mental time travel. Several tests assessing cognitive functions (e.g., working memory, executive functions, episodic memory) were also used in this study. Data were analysed using statistical mixed-effects models. Results: Analysis showed that participants with AD had difficulty grammatically marking tense and aspect. This finding was found in sentence completion tasks but also in discursive tasks. These difficulties are partly related to their cognitive profile, and in particular to their abilities in verbal working memory, mental flexibility and inhibition. However, the type of task seems to also have an influence on the production of time reference in AD.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Improved comprehension of irony and indirect requests following a severe traumatic brain injury: two case studies
    (2023-11-16) ;
    Maud Champagne-Lavau
    ;
    Background: Following a traumatic brain injury (TBI), people frequently have difficulty understanding nonliteral language, including irony and indirect requests. Despite the handicap that these disorders can represent in daily life, they are rarely treated clinically, and remediation studies are scarce. Aims: The present study thus aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of an explicit metapragmatic therapy targeting nonliteral language comprehension and taking into account cognitive processes likely to underlie this comprehension (i.e., contextual processing, theory of mind, and executive functions). Methods & Procedure: This study was registered on the ClinicalTrials.gov system (ID: NCT04708561) before participant recruitment. Two adults with severe TBI took part in the study. An ABA design with multiple baselines was used to assess the evolution of treated and non-treated written literal and nonliteral story comprehension, as well as ecological tasks and tasks assessing the cognitive processes of interest (theory of mind and executive functions). An interview was also conducted at the end of treatment to assess participant satisfaction. Outcomes & results: Therapy resulted in significant improvement in treated items, with one-month maintenance of gains and generalisation to untreated items in both participants. The generalisation to a working memory task was also observed in one participant. Finally, participant satisfaction with the treatment was high. Conclusions & implications: Our study demonstrated for the first time the potential of a therapy targeting irony and indirect request comprehension in TBI individuals. Clinically, it offers concrete therapeutic avenues and fills a critical gap in the TBI population’s evidence for the remediation of nonliteral language comprehension.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Direct and indirect linguistic measures of common ground in dialogue studies involving a matching task: A systematic review
    (2023-08-15) ;
    Dominique Knutsen
    ;
    During dialogue, speakers attempt to adapt messages to their addressee appropriately by taking into consideration their common ground (i.e., all the information mutually known by the conversational partners) to ensure successful communication. Knowing and remembering what information is part of the common ground shared with a given partner and using it during dialogue are crucial skills for social interaction. It is therefore important to better understand how we can measure the use of common ground and to identify the potential associated psychological processes. In this context, a systematic review of the literature was performed to list the linguistic measures of common ground found in dialogue studies involving a matching task and to explore any evidence of cognitive and social mechanisms underlying common ground use in this specific experimental setting, particularly in normal aging and in neuropsychological studies. Out of the 23 articles included in this review, we found seven different linguistic measures of common ground that were classified as either a direct measure of common ground (i.e., measures directly performed on the referential content) or an indirect measure of common ground (i.e., measures assessing the general form of the discourse). This review supports the idea that both types of measures should systematically be used while assessing common ground because they may reflect different concepts underpinned by distinct psychological processes. Given the lack of evidence for the implication of other cognitive and social functions in common ground use in studies involving matching tasks, future research is warranted, particularly in the clinical field.