Word association and availability of response in an aphasic subject

Confirmation of the claim that verbal responses are elicited more easily in aphasia when the range of possible responses is restricted was obtained by comparing stimulus words from a Word Association Test to which an aphasic subject gave three types of responses and those to which she made no response. Contrary to expectation, words of lower frequency in the language did not present more difficulty as stimuli and were given more often as responses than are such words in the norms. It is suggested that a generative model of semantics may be better able to account for such findings than an interpretive dictionary model.This work was assisted by a grant from the Stroke Research Fund.