Using Hungarian language to clarify language-thought relations in impaired

populations Csaba Pléh

and Ágnes Lukács Department of Cognitive Science

Budapest University of Technology and Economics and HAS-BME Research Group of Neuropsychology and Psycholinguistics

Talk at the symposium on Williams Syndrome

Fonyód, Hungary, June 25th 2005

Outline

• The logic of studying genetic disorders of cognition

• Williams syndrome as a favorit dissociative disorder

• Possible role of interlanguage comparions• Studies on Hungarian in WS subjects• Supporting spatial language problems, but

rejecting a specific disorder, questioning the simple intact grammar versus impaired lexicon dissocation

Disordered populations and cross-linguistic comparisons

• If there is a genetic disorder, it should be manifested in the same way in all languages and cultures

• Crosslingustic comparisons are still relevant:I. They allow to separate factors that are tied in one

language. E.g. irregularity and frequency in English morphology.

II. They may help to support epigenetic theories that emphasize the complex pathways leading to disturbed cognition

The interest towards Williams syndrome

• Promises to help understand the genes-brain-cognition chain

• Clear dissociations proposed in cognition:

WS social - autistic asocial

WS localistic - Down syndrome holistic

WS good language – SLI weak language

WS cognition: Strengths and weaknesses

• Strengths• Good social skills• Relative good

language• Grammar good in

language • Musicality

• Weaknesses• Low IQ 60-80• Weak visuo-spatial

cognition• Lexicon and

knowledge weak• Hyperacusia

Language in Williams syndrome: Theories and the Hungarian data

• Studies and theories

• Frequency is not relevant in the lexicon

• The mental lexicon is atypically organized

• Grammatical rules seem to be intact (Pinker, Clahsen)

• The language of space is especially weak

• Hungarian „test”

• Frequencies and individual differences

• More categories and category fluencies

• More stem classes and frequencies used

• Weakness, but no qualitative differences

Language profile in the Hungarian WS project (Lukács és Pléh)

WS level WS pattern

1. Vocabulary < +

2. Semantic fluency + +

3. Pragmatic cues in lexical learning szótanulásban

+ +

4. TROG < +

5.Rules and exceptions in morphology

< +

6.Grammaticality judgement

< -

7. Anaphora + +

8. Spatial expressions production and comprehension

< +

9. Sentence completion + +

Stimuli in the picture naming task

Nouns Verbs Compounds

Frequent

Rare

Lexical frequency effect: Present

010

2030

4050

6070

8090

100

Frequent Rare

WS

Age control

Voc Control

0

100

Frequent Rare All

Large individual differences: Knowledge of rare items in WS

children is a function of digit span

Low

High

Effects of verbal STM spanFrequent: F(1,13)=1.35, n.s.Rare:(1,13)=13.13, p<.005

Threshold effects: in controls, verbal working memory correlations nin significant in controls

Vocabulary measure WS Control

N, Freq ,51 * ,23

N, rare ,63 * ,27

V, freq ,43 ,22

V, rare ,48 * ,16

Comp, Freq ,61 * ,25

Comp, rare ,47 * ,14

Semantic fluency and supposed iddyosynchretic organization

WS subjects and controls matched on verbal age in a category fluency task

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

anim

als food

drinks

music

al in

strum

ents

cloth

es

furn

iture

thin

gs to

read jo

bs

WSVC

`

Comparisons based on category norms of Kónya & Pintér (1986)

No systematic differences between the two groups in the frequency of items they produced

WS produced less frequent musical instrument names

No systematic differences between the two groups in the average rank of items they produced

WS subjects had higher scores (i.e. pruduced items appearing later in the original lists) in clothes and musical instruments

Morphological irregularity Stimuli in the morphology task

Regularcipő-cipők ‘shoe’-’shoes’

Irregularbagoly-baglyok‘owl’-’owls’

Presupposed dissociation is missing: Rules vs. Items

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Reg Freq Reg Rare Except Freq Except Rare

Vcontrol

WS

Qualitative comparison of errors

• If anything, more overgeneralization in controls

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

WSExcep

WSReg

ContExcep

ContReg

Overgener

Other

Spatial versus nonspatial morphology in WS: As expected, spatial language is

impaired

0

20

40

60

80

100

spatialsuffix

spatialpostposition

nonspatialsuffix

VCSCWMS

The language of space in Hungarian

allows for qualitative comparisons • Obligatory distinctions

along the path

• Three markers for GOAL, SOURCE, LOCATION. Is there a difference?

WS is weaker in postposition production.

SOURCES are difficult for both groups

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Static Source Goal

WS

VC

Less difference in comprehension than production, suffixes

0

0,5

1

1,5

2

WSprod WScomp VCprod VCcomp

Static

Source

Goal

Source difficulty

• Our data support Landau and Zukowski’s hypothesis: the difficulty with retaining information in memory can account for special difficulty with SOURCE paths.

• The pattern is similar to what we observe in typical development at earlier stages.

Comparing spatial and non-spatial uses in a repetition task

SPATIAL Az oroszlán megszökött a ketrecből.

The lion escaped the cage-ELA.The lion escaped from the cage.

NON SPATIAL Pisti tanult a balesetbőlPisti learnt the accident-ELA.Pisti learnt from the accident.

Possibilities here

• Non-spatial is relatively easier for WS subjects

• Non-spatial is more difficult for both groups

• Differences diminish since there is no need for referntial coding of space

Non spatial is weaker for both groups

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

STATIC spatial SOURCE spatial GOAL spatial STATICnonspatial

SOURCEnonspatial

GOALnonspatial

% c

orre

ct WS

VC

Conclusions: Why was it relevant to do studies in Hungarian?

• Frequencv is a factor in WS language, and memory is an important mediating variable

• WS shows no clear support for the intact rules – impaired lexicon model

• Spatial language is impaired in WS, but the patterns is the same as in typical development

• Difficulties with spatial language in WS reflect their problems in spatial cognition

Acknowledgements

Hungarian Willams Syndrome Association

NSF, Hungarian National Science Foundation, Hungarian National R and D Foundation