People with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) show anomalies in language processing with respect to "who is doing what" in an action. This linguistic behavior is suggestive of an atypical representation of the formal concepts of "Agent" in the lexical representation of a verb, i.e., its thematic grid. To test this hypothesis, we administered a silent-reading task with sentences including a semantic violation of the animacy trait of the grammatical subject to 30 people with SSD and 30 healthy control participants (HCs). When the anomalous grammatical subject was the Agent of the event, a significant increase of Gaze Duration was observed in HCs, but not in SSDs. Conversely, when the anomalous subject was a Theme, SSDs displayed an increased probability of go-back movements, unlike HCs. These results are suggestive of a higher tolerability for anomalous Agents in SSD compared to the normal population. The fact that SSD participants did not show a similar tolerability for anomalous Themes rules out the issue of an attention deficit. We suggest that general communication abilities in SSD might benefit from explicit training on deep linguistic structures.

Barattieri di San Pietro, C., de Girolamo, G., Luzzatti, C., Marelli, M. (2022). Agency of Subjects and Eye Movements in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders. JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH, 51(6), 1371-1391 [10.1007/s10936-022-09903-6].

Agency of Subjects and Eye Movements in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders

Barattieri di San Pietro, Chiara
;
Luzzatti, Claudio;Marelli, Marco
2022

Abstract

People with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) show anomalies in language processing with respect to "who is doing what" in an action. This linguistic behavior is suggestive of an atypical representation of the formal concepts of "Agent" in the lexical representation of a verb, i.e., its thematic grid. To test this hypothesis, we administered a silent-reading task with sentences including a semantic violation of the animacy trait of the grammatical subject to 30 people with SSD and 30 healthy control participants (HCs). When the anomalous grammatical subject was the Agent of the event, a significant increase of Gaze Duration was observed in HCs, but not in SSDs. Conversely, when the anomalous subject was a Theme, SSDs displayed an increased probability of go-back movements, unlike HCs. These results are suggestive of a higher tolerability for anomalous Agents in SSD compared to the normal population. The fact that SSD participants did not show a similar tolerability for anomalous Themes rules out the issue of an attention deficit. We suggest that general communication abilities in SSD might benefit from explicit training on deep linguistic structures.
Articolo in rivista - Articolo scientifico
Eye movements; Language; Schizophrenia spectrum disorders; Verb thematic roles;
English
16-lug-2022
2022
51
6
1371
1391
open
Barattieri di San Pietro, C., de Girolamo, G., Luzzatti, C., Marelli, M. (2022). Agency of Subjects and Eye Movements in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders. JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH, 51(6), 1371-1391 [10.1007/s10936-022-09903-6].
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10281/396590
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