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CT scans of EBA's brain after the first stroke (top) and 4 years after her second stroke (bottom). She had no clinical sig nificant neurological event after the second stroke.
Source publication
We report the performance of a patient who, as a consequence of left frontal and temporoparietal strokes, makes far more errors on nouns than on verbs in spoken output tasks, but makes far more errors on verbs than on nouns in written input tasks. This double dissociation within a single patient with respect to grammatical category provides evidenc...
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Citations
... HW made more errors on verbs than on nouns in oral but not in written output; whereas, SJD showed the same verb production deficit in writing, but not in speech. In a subsequent study, Hillis and Caramazza (1995) found that a neurologically impaired patient, EBA, showed more impairment in noun production in oral than in written output but more impairment in recognizing and comprehending written verbs than oral verbs. These results indicate a dissociation between the oral and written modalities with regard to the production and processing of word grammatical category (i.e., nouns vs. verbs). ...
It is unclear to what extent natural differences between reading and listening result in differences in the syntactic representations formed in each modality. The present study investigated the occurrence of syntactic priming bidirectionally from reading to listening, and vice versa to examine whether reading and listening share the same syntactic representations in both first language (L1) and second language (L2). Participants performed a lexical decision task (LDT) in which the experimental words were embedded in sentences with either an ambiguous or a familiar structure. These structures were alternated to produce a priming effect. The modality was manipulated whereby participants a) first read part of the sentence list, and then listened to the rest of the list (reading-listening group), or b) listened and then read (listening-reading group). In addition, the study involved two within-modality lists in which participants either read or listened to the whole list. The L1 group showed within-modal priming in both listening and reading as well as a cross-modal priming effect. Although L2 speakers showed priming in reading, the effect was absent in listening and weak in the listening-reading condition. The absence of priming in L2 listening was attributed to difficulties in L2 listening rather than to an inability to produce abstract priming.
... Although the details on the sidedness effect may seem rather methodological, they relate on the contrary to a crucial theoretical issue related to research on body representation. In the domain of perception, to recognize objects, even from different and unusual viewpoints, it has been proposed that people rely on structural knowledge of objects (Hillis & Caramazza, 1995;Sutherland, 2012). This knowledge corresponds in part to the 3-D level of the influential model of Marr (Kitcher, 1988;Marr, 1982), where a 'catalogue' of object structures contains volumetric object descriptions that are stored in multiple viewpoints and distinctive features may also be included in this knowledge (Warrington & James, 1988). ...
The way human bodies are represented is central in everyday activities. The cognitive system must combine internal, visceral, and somatosensory, signals to external, visually driven information generated from the spatial placement of others’ bodies and the own body in the space. However, how different body representations covertly interact among them when observing human body parts is still unclear. Therefore, we investigated the implicit processing of body parts by manipulating either the body part stimuli’ posture (conditions a and b) or the participants’ response body posture (conditions c, d, and e) in healthy participants (N = 70) using a spatial compatibility task called Sidedness task. The task requires participants to judge the colour of a circle superimposed on a task‐irrelevant body part picture. Responses are facilitated when the spatial side of the responding hand corresponds to the spatial code generated by the hand stimulus's position with respect to a body of reference. Results showed that the observation of the task‐irrelevant body parts oriented participants’ attention and facilitated responses that were spatial compatible with the spatial position such body parts have within a configural representation of the body structure (i.e., Body Structural Representation) in all the five experimental conditions. Notably, the body part stimuli were mentally attached to the body according to the most comfortable and less awkward postures, following the anatomo‐physiological constraints. Moreover, the pattern of the results was not influenced by manipulating the participants’ response postures, suggesting that the automatic and implicit coding of the body part stimuli does not rely on proprioceptive information about one's body (i.e., Body Schema). We propose that the human body's morphometry knowledge is enriched by biomechanical and anatomo‐physiological information about the real body movement possibilities. Moreover, we discuss the importance of the automatic orienting of attention based on the sidedness within the context of imitational learning.
... A dissociation occurring at the lemma level would thus cause modality-aspecific lexical retrieval and/or lexical-morphosyntactic implementation deficits [Silveri & Di Betta, 1997;Berndt, Mitchum, Haendiges, & Sandson, 1997a, 1997bShapiro & Caramazza, 2003]. At the lexeme level, a N/V-specific phonological/orthographic output lexicon would be damaged [Caramazza & Hillis, 1991;Hillis & Caramazza, 1995;Rapp & Caramazza, 2002]. ...
Background
Motor structures involvement has been traditionally assumed to account for selective deficits of verb (V) vs. noun (N) processing in Parkinon's disease (PD) patients via action semantic impairment (Embodied Cognition Theory, ECT). Nonetheless, post-semantic accounts, as well as extra-linguistic explanations (task difficulty effects), have not been evenly endorsed. This study aimed at investigating neurocognitive underpinnings of N–V discrepanies in PD patients.
Methods
PD patients with (PD+) and without (PD-) cognitive impairments were compared to healthy participants (HPs) on tasks evaluating N and V semantic as well as post-semantic processing. Effects of motor content (actionality) of Ns and Vs and of verb argument structure (VAS) complexity were assessed.
Results
All groups performed worse in V than in N lexical retrieval. PD patients performed worse than HPs on both lexical and semantic tasks. By contrast, only N/V naming tasks discriminated PD-from PD + patients. PD + patients showed selective difficulties in retrieving low-actionality as well as transitive and unaccusative Vs. No associations were detected between the action semantic measure and V-naming performances.
Discussion
ECT-framed explanations cannot account for N–V discrepancies in PD patients. Indeed, these patients showed semantic deficits not limited to the action domain and retrieved most easily high-actionality Vs. N–V discrepancies in PD patients would thus reflect a magnification of a differential processing demand for Vs vs. Ns - which is intrinsic to the neurocognitive system. Nonetheless, PD patients being sensitive to VAS complexity might imply fronto-striatal involvement in V post-semantic processing, possibly at the lemma level.
... There is considerable evidence in linguistics, psycholinguistics, neuropsychology, and neuroimaging (Damasio and Tranel, 1993;Hillis and Caramazza, 1995;Sereno, 1999;Davis et al., 2004;Aggujaro et al., 2006;Pinker, 2009), suggesting that words belonging to different grammatical classes (especially nouns and verbs) are functionally distinct elements and therefore that grammatical class constitutes an organizational principle of lexical knowledge. However, alternative accounts in all of these fields (Sapir, 1921;Bates and MacWhinney, 1982;Cotelli et al., 2006;Longe et al., 2007;Crepaldi et al., 2014) reject this representational distinction between nouns and verbs as grammatical classes and claim that the observed differences arise as a consequence of different semantic and syntactic constraints. ...
The present study examined differences between inflectional and derivational morphology using Greek nouns and verbs with masked priming (with both short and long stimulus onset asynchrony) and long-lag priming. A lexical decision task to inflected noun and verb targets was used to test whether their processing is differentially facilitated by prior presentation of their stem in words of the same grammatical class (inflectional morphology) or of a different grammatical class (derivational morphology). Differences in semantics, syntactic information, and morphological complexity between inflected and derived word pairs (both nouns and verbs) were minimized by unusually tight control of stimuli as permitted by Greek morphology. Results showed that morphological relations affected processing of morphologically complex Greek words (nouns and verbs) across prime durations (50–250ms) as well as when items intervened between primes and targets. In two of the four experiments (Experiments 1 and 3), inflectionally related primes produced significantly greater effects than derivationally related primes suggesting differences in processing inflectional versus derivational morphological relations, which may disappear when processing is less dependent on semantic effects (Experiment 4). Priming effects differed for verb vs. noun targets with long SOA priming (Experiment 3), consistent with processing differences between complex words of different grammatical class (nouns and verbs) when semantic effects are maximized. Taken together, results demonstrate that inflectional and derivational relations differentially affect processing complex words of different grammatical class (nouns and verbs). This finding indicates that distinctions of morphological relation (inflectional vs. derivational) are not of the same kind as distinctions of grammatical class (nouns vs. verbs). Asymmetric differences among inflected and derived verbs and nouns seem to depend on semantic effects and/or processing demands modulating priming effects very early in lexical processing of morphologically complex written words, consistent with models of lexical processing positing early access to morphological structure and early influence of semantics.
... L'argomento è al centro di un dibattito che si sviluppa ormai da lungo tempo; la scoperta di una doppia dissociazione tra nomi e verbi nel caso di lesioni focali (Mätzig et al. 2009), infatti, a partire dagli anni Novanta è stata considerata un'evidenza a favore della rilevanza della classe grammaticale come principio organizzativo della conoscenza lessicale a livello neuroanatomico (Hillis & Caramazza 1995): nomi e verbi sarebbero dunque rappresentati in network neurali distinti e separati (Damasio & Tranel 1993) (fig. 5, A). ...
I verbi d’azione hanno altissima frequenza nelle produzioni verbali spontanee: una compromissione a carico di questa classe lessicale, tradizionalmente meno indagata nella prassi della valutazione neuropsicologica, può perciò danneggiare gravemente i livelli di funzionamento linguistico-comunicativo e cognitivo dei parlanti. La batteria SMAAV – Semantic Memory Assessment on Action Verbs è specificamente finalizzata all’indagine dell’integrità di tale componente del lessico, sia in produzione che in comprensione: è dunque utilizzabile come strumento di secondo livello per la valutazione delle compromissioni semantico–lessicali nella popolazione adulta.
... • disturbi selettivi in base alla classe grammaticale delle parole, tipicamente nomi e verbi (Aggujaro et al., 2006;Caramazza & Hillis, 1991;Hillis & Caramazza, 1995;Hillis et al., 1999;Rapp & Caramazza, 2002;Shapiro et al., 2000); ...
In Italia e nel mondo una parte importante della popolazione sopravvive a lungo ad eventi traumatici e patologici a carico del cervello che compromettono in maniera più o meno grave le capacità cognitive. Attualmente, il progresso nelle cure e nelle politiche sociali garantisce alle persone con lesioni cerebrali una buona aspettativa di vita e delle adeguate condizioni di salute generale. Tuttavia, la qualità della vita non è paragonabile al periodo precedente all’insorgere del disturbo. Una delle ragioni che incide sulle ricadute negative a lungo termine di una lesione cerebrale ha a che fare con la riduzione della capacità delle persone di mantenersi orientate rispetto alla realtà socio-culturale in cui vivono, ad esempio, aggiornandosi attraverso i mezzi di informazione.
La tesi descrive uno studio empirico mirato alla produzione di contenuti testuali destinati alla televisione adatti alla fruizione da parte di persone con danno cerebrale.
I lanci delle notizie di alcune edizioni dei principali telegiornali delle reti nazionali sono stati analizzati attraverso l’uso di strumenti automatici di linguistica computazionale.
Successivamente, sono stati prodotti due diversi adattamenti dei testi delle notizie.
Il primo adattamento ha riguardato la semplificazione del testo attraverso cambiamenti operati sugli aspetti lessicali e sintattici del testo della notizia. Il secondo adattamento ha previsto ulteriori semplificazioni basate sulla riformulazione della notizia, senza eliminare o aggiungere dettagli rispetto alla versione originale.
Le versioni originali e adattate dei testi delle notizie sono state sottoposte a dei rating di valutazione mirati ad ottenere valori relativi a tre parametri: la complessità dell’argomento oggetto della notizia, la complessità della formulazione linguistica della notizia e la naturalezza della formulazione linguistica della notizia.
Le versioni originali e adattate dei testi delle notizie sono state usate in uno studio pilota in cui sono state ottenute misure sulla velocità di lettura e sulla comprensione delle notizie in un campione di studenti universitari.
È stato inoltre creato un test basato sul paradigma sperimentale del moving windows destinato a valutare la lettura e la comprensione delle notizie in persone con disturbi cognitivi.
Lo scopo ultimo del lavoro è quello di valutare la possibilità di integrare l’uso di metodi linguistici automatici per l’accessibilità di testi con misurazioni psicolinguistiche e per ottenere parametri cognitivamente e linguisticamente orientati per l’implementazione futura di tecniche di semplificazione dei contenuti dei telegiornali destinati a favore dei pazienti con danni cerebrali acquisiti.
... There is abundant evidence suggesting distinct neural correlates for nouns (e.g., the left superior temporal gyrus) and verbs (e.g., the left inferior frontal regions) (Burton, Kerbs-Noble, Gullapalli, & Berndt, 2009;Davis, Meunier, & Marslen-Wilson, 2004;Kable, Lease-Spellmeyer, & Chatterjee, 2002;Li, Jin, & Tan, 2004;Momenian, Nilipour, Samar, Oghabian, & Cappa, 2016;Palti, Ben Shachar, Hendler, & Hadar, 2007;Perani et al., 1999;Saccuman et al., 2006;Tyler, Russell, Fadili, & Moss, 2001;Yang et al., 2017;Yang, Tan, & Li, 2011;Yu, Law, Han, Zhu, & Bi, 2011). This evidence is consistent with earlier observations of patients with aphasia (e.g., Caramazza & Hillis, 1991;Hillis & Caramazza, 1995). ...
... The lexical account claims that nouns and verbs are stored separately in the mental lexicon and the noun-verb dissociation results from selective damage to accessing either the noun or the verb lexicon at the lexical stage of word production. [1][2][3] The semantic account proposes that verbs are more difficult because they are semantically more complex. Verbs tend to be lower in imageability (the degree to which a word can generate a mental image and/or sensory experience) than nouns, and have less perceptual features. ...
Cueing techniques are often utilized in the treatment of aphasic naming deficits. Cueing technique includes repetition, sentence completion, semantic cueing and phonemic cueing, which helps in eliciting responses from aphasic subjects to stimuli they cannot name. Previous studies have recognized the viability of cueing as a technique for helping the aphasic patient, but they have presented little systematic research to support the effectiveness of various cues. Hence the current investigation was designed to study the effects of two cueing techniques, semantic cueing and phonologic cueing, on persons with Broca's Aphasia who represented different levels of lexical-semantic processing impairment. Fifteen participants aged between 40-70 years and diagnosed with Broca's Aphasia were selected for the study. Stimuli included 20 black-and-white line drawings of both nouns and verbs. Pictures of nouns were taken from Boston Naming Test and verbs from Action Naming Battery. The procedure was divided into 2 phases based on the cueing strategy used. These phases were carried out for both nouns and verbs. In phase 1, phonemic cueing was used for five words related to nouns and five words related to verbs were used. In phase 2, semantic cueing was used for a set of different five words were used for each nouns and verbs. Results of the study revealed phonemic cueing were better than semantic cues and interestingly there was no difference noticed across different grammatical class of words.
... (Vigliocco et al., 2011: 410) Un modello come questo è certamente ispirato alla linguistica computazionale, in quanto l'insieme dei processi morfosintattici attraverso cui si genera l'informazione finale da comunicare sarebbe strettamente correlato alla generazione delle informazioni di natura semantica, cioè entrambi i processi sarebbero localizzati in aree corticali associate da un unico polo di elaborazione -localizzato approssimativamente nell'area di Broca -in modo da ridurre lo sforzo cognitivo e, contemporaneamente, accrescere la rapidità di risposta e produzione del messaggio. Tuttavia, anche questo modello va in-contro a criticità, che consistono nella difficoltà di trovare evidenze sperimentali che dimostrino una differenziazione tra i correlati neurali dell'elaborazione semantica e, allo stesso tempo, morfologica di tutti i nomi e tutti i verbi -come si vedrà più avanti, non è infrequente imbattersi in studi che riscontrano un'affinità, quando non una completa identità, ad esempio, tra i correlai neurali di nomi e verbi che esprimono azioni (Caramazza & Hillis, 1995;Vigliocco et al., 2011). Nel paragrafo seguente saranno illustrate tre ricerche sperimentali, con l'intento di presentare ciascuna di esse come esperimento corroborante ognuno dei tre modelli. ...
Through a substancial compendium of research addresses in the history of linguistics about the parts of speech, this thesis examine how neurolinguistics attempted to clarify the status of word classes in contemporary linguistic debate. The last chapter proposes a synthesis of the various approaches adopted by neurolinguistics in these studies, exploring the way our brain processes linguistic informations and how it behaves when dealing with linguistic categorizations, such as word classes.
... Such discrepancies in performance between nouns and verbs on a variety of tasks have led some to argue that the representations of nouns and verbs are separate and functionally independent (Crepaldi et al. 2011). For example, some researchers have argued that lexical forms (i.e., grammatical class) are an organizational principle for knowledge of language in the brain (e.g., Caramazza and Hillis 1991;Hillis and Caramazza 1995;Shapiro et al. 2000;Silveri and Di Betta 1997) and that there are separate neural substrates for the two grammatical classes (e.g., Daniele et al. 1994). This theory would thus predict that the difference between nouns and verbs applies not only to concrete nouns (i.e., objects) and concrete verbs (i.e., actions), but also to their abstract counterparts. ...
... We propose that the previously reported grammatical class effect due to a supposed separate organization of nouns and verbs in the brain (e.g., Hillis and Caramazza 1995) in fact reflects the disguised influence of sensory-perceptual and sensory-motor features on lexical-semantic processing. Concreteness can be viewed as the collective weight of sensory-perceptual and sensory-motor features of a concept (Vinson et al. 2003); indeed, this is what the instructions requested when concreteness ratings were collected by Brysbaert et al. (2014). ...
Effects of concreteness and grammatical class on lexical-semantic processing are well-documented, but the role of sensory-perceptual and sensory-motor features of concepts in underlying mechanisms producing these effects is relatively unknown. We hypothesized that processing dissimilarities in accuracy and response time performance in nouns versus verbs, concrete versus abstract words, and their interaction can be explained by differences in semantic weight—the combined amount of sensory-perceptual and sensory-motor information to conceptual representations—across those grammatical and semantic categories. We assessed performance on concrete and abstract subcategories of nouns and verbs with a semantic similarity judgment task. Results showed that when main effects of concreteness and grammatical class were analyzed in more detail, the grammatical-class effect, in which nouns are processed more accurately and quicker than verbs, was only present for concrete words, not for their abstract counterparts. Moreover, the concreteness effect, measured at different levels of abstract words, was present for both nouns and verbs, but it was less pronounced for verbs. The results do not support the grammatical-class hypothesis, in which nouns and verbs are separately organized, and instead provide evidence in favor of a unitary semantic space, in which lexical-semantic processing is influenced by the beneficial effect of sensory-perceptual and sensory-motor information of concepts.
