Intervention proceeded following a within-subjects multiple baseline design involving three tasks: picture-elicited narratives, story-retelling, and conversation on familiar topics.
For instance, in self-face recognition tasks, pictures of self were contrasted with pictures of either unfamiliar [19] or famous [36] people.
Similarly in the AR and PT versions of the visual probe task, the 12 picture pairs consist of 6 picture pairs featured in the assessment version of the task (picture pairs 6 12) in addition to 6 new picture pairs (picture pairs 13 18).
Each task (picture, word or pattern presentation) was presented in a separate run; they were not mixed because of potential difficulties in task switching that occur in stroke aphasia (Jefferies and Lambon Ralph, 2006).
The response times (RT) for all participants and all conditions were submitted to a repeated-measures ANOVA with three within-subjects factors: task (picture naming, number reading), site (left ATL, left IPL, and Oz), and TMS (no-TMS versus rTMS).
A 3 × 2 × 2 repeated-measures design was used, with site (left ATL versus left IPL versus occipital pole), task (picture naming versus number reading), and TMS (no TMS versus rTMS stimulation) as the three within-participant factors.
