Reis, AlexandraAguiar, Vânia deGonçalves, Rita Alexandra Mendes2016-04-222016-04-2220142014http://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/8067Dissertação de mestrado, Neuropsicologia e Neurociências Cognitivas, Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais, Universidade do Algarve, 2014Background: The comprehension of the d-linked relations and local-binding relations, is a pivotal matter to understand the mechanisms underlying discourse comprehension (Avrutin, 2000). According to Acheson, Postle and Macdonald (2010) and Wright and Shisler, (2005) a preserved working memory (WM) is essential for language processing effectiveness, being an essential tool for resolving structural and lexical ambiguity during the discourse processing and comprehension. Aim: The aim of this research is to address the relationship between working memory and comprehension of discourse, and compare the performance in sentences with d-linked and local-binding relations in three groups: right hemisphere lesion group (without language impairments), left hemisphere lesion group (with aphasia) and controls. Method & Procedures: We measured the accuracy and response times (RT) for working memory; and for sentences with pronouns and reflexives of three groups of participants. The experimental tasks consisted in a one-back task and a sentence–picture matching task where pronouns and reflexives were manipulated. For the follow up study we did an error prevalence study with another sentence–picture matching task. Outcomes & Results: In all groups we observed a better performance in reflexives comparing to pronouns, and also longer RTs for pronouns. The aphasic group has the poorer performance of the three, followed by right hemisphere group. We only found correlation for accuracy results between WM and pronouns for right hemisphere group and control group and between WM and reflexives for the same groups. Conclusions: In different ways, both lesion sites have distinct functions that are relevant for processing anaphors, being LH more crucially engaged in anaphoric resolution. The working memory results of patients groups combined with the different levels of impairment in the language task between LH and RH patients point to the assumption that WM has a limited but relevant contribution for the processing of pronouns and reflexives. The finding in the correlational study lead us to the conclusion that, probably, the different groups rely on different cognitive skills in the processing of both reflexives and pronouns.porNeuropsicologiaDiscursoMemória de trabalhoLinguagemCompreensãomaster thesis201728559