Comprehension and storage of four serially presented radio news stories by mild aphasic subjects

The present study investigated aphasic subjects' ability to comprehend and store serially presented discourse. Sixteen mild aphasic subjects, eight age-matched normals, and eight younger normals listened to four serially presented radio news stories and a single radio news story. Half of the aphasic subjects performed as well as age-matched normals in a single-news-story comprehension task. However, they demonstrated a drastic deterioration in performance when asked to listen to a series of four news stories. Age-matched normals, and aphasic subjects, to a lesser extent, showed an impairment in the comprehension and storage of the news story heard last in a series of four news stories. These results were discussed in terms of the comprehension and storage resources of working memory.