• Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.65-75
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• 2000

The present study attempted to determine the effect of olfactory stimulation on word retrieval deficit in Korean aphasics. Eleven nonfluent and 9 fluent aphasic patients served as subjects. The 20 subjects' age ranged from 14 to 65 with the mean of 43.0 (SD: 17.6). A neurologist examined them and diagnosed that they had no visual, auditory, and olfactory impairment. The study consisted of 2 experiments: Experiment I included visual stimulation while experiment II included visual and olfactory stimulation. The subjects were presented with 19 pictures for them to name in the experiment I, whereas they were exposed to the 19 pictures along with the corresponding olfactory stimulus in the experiment II. The 19 items included soy sauce, chilly pepper, Kimchi, chewing gum, cigarette (smoked), soybean paste, lemon, banana, alcohol (wine), apple, fish, vinegar, cuttlefish (dried), milk, rose, sesame oil, melon, coffee, and perfume. The results were as follows: First, olfactory stimulation tended to improve aphasics' word retrieval deficit although the improvement was not statistically significant. Second, the nonfluent aphasics seemed to take more advantage from olfactory stimulation compared to the fluent aphasics. Third, olfactory stimulation (olfactory + visual) did not produce a different naming performance compared to visual stimulation in the pre- and post-test when the pre- and post-test was composed of naming tasks through auditory + visual stimulation. Fourth, the fluent aphasics performed better with unpleasant olfactory stimulus while the nonfluent aphasics performed better with pleasant olfactory stimulus.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.111-132
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• 2013

Previous research has shown that aging asymmetrically affects various functions in language. It is known that older adults show deficits in language production compared to young adults, while the performance in semantic processing is similar between older and young adults. The tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon effectively reflects failure in retrieval of phonological knowledge. Older adults report TOTs more often than young adults and the cause of this phenomenon has been explained by two frameworks: the 'blocking hypothesis' and 'transmission deficit hypothesis'. This study examines the effect of aging on the retrival of phonological knowledge by inducing TOTs in the laboratory. Two variables were manipulated: age and word category. Participants were young and older adults, and stimuli was selected from 5 categories of words. After the participants read a definition about a target word, they reported three conditions: 'know', 'don't know', 'TOT'. The results were as follows: First, the older adults reported TOTs more often than the young adults. Second, TOTs occurred more in proper nouns such as names of persons and places. Third, in the category that TOTs occurred more often, there was a bigger age difference. Fourth, older adults reported fewer alternative words during TOT than young adults. Fifth, participants tended to report the partial information during TOT in characters. These results show the age-related difficulty in the retrieval of phonological knowledge in Korean. It is explained by the transmission deficit hypothesis and the characteristics of Korean orthography and phonology.