Processing Lexical Ambiguities in Word Triplets: Evidence of Lexical-Semantic Deficits Following Dominant Nonthalamic Subcortical Lesions

Lexical-semantic function was investigated in 10 participants with lesions of the dominant nonthalamic subcortical (NS) region and a matched normal control group. Participants performed speeded lexical decisions on the 3rd member of auditorily presented word triplets. The 4 critical triplet conditions were concordant ( coin-bank-money ), discordant ( river-bank-money ), neutral ( day-bank-money ), and unrelated ( river-day-money ). When the interstimulus interval (ISI) between the words in the triplets was 100 ms, patients with NS lesions obtained priming that indicated nonselective lexical access; at 1,250-ms ISI, however, there was no significant priming effect. This pattern of results is consistent with the view that patients with NS lesions can automatically access lexical-semantic information but may be unable to sustain lexical activation through controlled or attentional forms of processing.