Syntactic Priming Effects on Active and Passive Sentence Production in Persons with Aphasia: Evidence from an Eye-tracking Study

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate active and passive sentence production ability in aphasia by analyzing the process of sentence production under conditions of syntactic priming using eye-tracking. Methods: Nine patients with aphasia and ten age and education matched normal adults participated in this study. Participants repeated prime sentences first, and then described picture events using the same verb. Accuracy and speech onset latencies from speech regions (NP1-NP2-V-End) were analyzed and fixation count of areas of interest (Agent, Theme) from speech regions (Before onset, NP1, NP2, V-End) were analyzed for eye movement measurement. Results: Aphasic patients performed significantly less accurately than normal adults in both active and passive sentences; and they also took significantly longer to produce both type of sentences accurately. Similar fixation pattern was found between normal adults and aphasic patients when they made correct responses. However, when aphasic patients made wrong responses, the fixation pattern was different from correct responses' in normal adults and aphasic patients. Conclusion: The results of eye movement measurements suggests that eye movements of aphasic patients were similar to those of normal adults in correct response; fixating 'Theme' more than 'Agent'. On the other hand, in the case of incorrect responses, eye movements of aphasic patients were different from those of normal adults; indicating that aphasic patients have difficulties in processing active and passive sentence.