Semantic and phonological retrieval in traumatic brain injury

Background: Identifying associations or links between encoded stimuli can influence whether those stimuli are successfully retrieved at a later time.Aims: The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of semantic and phonological lexical targets on recall in individuals with mild to moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to identify if individuals with TBI form associations when recalling related information.Methods & Procedures: Forty-seven individuals, 14 with TBI, completed the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) word retrieval paradigm in which six digitally recorded word lists were presented auditorily. Three of the lists contained semantically related words and three contained phonologically related words.Outcomes & Results: Non-brain-injured (NBI) participants recalled significantly more phonological and semantic stimuli than participants with TBI. Phonologically related stimuli resulted in increased intrusions for both TBI and NBI participants. For participants with TBI, age and...