Critical Evaluation of Linguistic Subjects
The article is a critical evaluation of a nominated research article known as facilitatory and interfering effects of neighbourhood density on speech production (Laganaro, Chetelat-Mabillard & Frauenfelder, 2013). The material has been replicated in the following study, and the relevant solutions to the questions have been written.
Q1
The author of the article gives a sufficient description of the participants of the study. This is because he provides us with the type of errors that the participants collected while conducting the whole review. He gives us all the break down on how the participants did the facilitatory as well as interfering effects and how they affect each other.
Q2
The author uses a picture naming task that includes a subset of monosyllabic and disyllabic words. The materials are well designed. This is because the author gives a clear view of the elements used. He goes ahead to explain what was excluded from the study and giving out the reasons for exclusion. Standardised tests were used, and thus the author provides sufficient information on its reliability and validity included. The author appendix consists of a full set of different items that were matched on possible confounding variables.
Q3
Facilitatory and interfering effects on phonological neighbourhood density are the manipulated variables in this case study. The author assumes that the phonological neighbourhood density is observed in speech production within the same case study, giving an opportunity to discuss as well as examine the opposite effects together. These operational definitions are provided with a thorough description and are justified. The participants of the case study explain well on the on the operational definitions, but more alternatives would have been given like how the phonological neighbourhoods were produced.
Q4
The author opted for a picture naming task including a subset of 58 monosyllabic and 57 disyllabic words out of 144 items from the original studies. The controls were sufficient such that any data that the participants required was available to them. The author did not acknowledge the confounding variables because they frustrate the necessary results in the case study.
Q5
The author gives all the details that are required in carrying out the study. He starts with the number of participants in the case study, the material used for the research. He also provides with the procedures and scoring of the samples as well as the analysis. He finally brings about the discussion as well as the results.
Areas to regard concerning the presentation and analysis of data
Q1
Some of the data were omitted mainly words with unclear syllabification and words that not all psycho-linguistic properties are presented. The reason for the omission is apparent that if words with unclear syllabification are included, then the objective of the study will not be attained. This is a justified move because ambiguous findings would come by ending up in a mix up to the survey.
Q2
All the results of the study are presented. Table one shows the error distribution of each participant, and it states well that the main errors are used in the analysis. The author goes ahead to thoroughly explain the coding of the results depending on their categories. A clear analysis of data is defined from the beginning of the case study to data collection as well as the breakdown of the same survey. Results of the four main error subtypes are presented first, giving room for further explanation of results of additional analysis on formal as well as non-word errors. Table 2 further gives the summary of the fixed effects in the generalised linear mixed models, thus provides the author with a brief explanation of the hypothesis.
Q3
The results brought about by the author directly brought relevance to the research questions and hypothesis posed in the introduction. The introduction of this case study puts more emphasis on the use of multiple analysis models to evaluate phonological neighbourhood density. The author goes ahead to use the same model in the case study as well as showing us how the model picks up data and analysis it. The principal hypothesis was to show how facilitatory as well as effects of neighbourhood density on speech production.
Q4
The analysis of the data was short and precise. It also gave a clear and easy way to understand the case study. The first set of analysis was to run on each of the four main errors that is response omission, semantic, nonword as well as formal mistakes. The second one was shifted its focus to phonological mistakes diverging either on a single phoneme or more than one phoneme from the target. The data analysis gave a clear-cut result that is the participants generating fewer nonwords and semantic errors while producing more formal errors. Thus, the synthesis provided a clear-cut answer to the research question posed.
Reference
Laganaro, M., Chetelat-Mabillard, D., & Frauenfelder, U. H. (2013). Facilitatory and interfering effects of neighbourhood density on speech production: Evidence from aphasic errors. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 30(3), 127-146.