457 research outputs found

    Venetian Serenade : Serenade Venitienne

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    https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-ps/1699/thumbnail.jp

    Language impairment and colour categories

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    Goldstein (1948) reported multiple cases of failure to categorise colours in patients that he termed amnesic or anomic aphasics. these patients have a particular difficulty in producing perceptual categories in the absence of other aphasic impairments. we hold that neuropsychological evidence supports the view that the task of colour categorisation is logically impossible without labels

    Osservazioni cliniche e anatomiche nella storia della neuropsicologia del linguaggio: gli studi pre-Broca

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    Riassunto: I manuali di neurologia e neuropsicologia sono soliti datare l’esordio della storia dell'afasia con la comunicazione di Paul Broca sulla sede del linguaggio articolato nei lobi frontali (1861). Di fatto, Benton e Joynt (1960) hanno raccolto numerose osservazioni di pazienti afasici dalla tradizione medica greca, latina, medioevale, rinascimentale e dalla letteratura illuministica del XVIII secolo. In nessuno dei casi riportati, tuttavia, pare siano stati identificati gli elementi cruciali di un deficit di linguaggio di natura afasica, e cioè da un lato la distinzione tra deficit di linguaggio, deficit concettuali e deficit della realizzazione articolatoria, dall'altro, la relazione con una lesione dell’emisfero cerebrale sinistro. Nella prima parte di questo articolo si discutono le opere di due medici del XVI e XVII secolo, Johannes Schenck e Johannes Jacob Wepfer, i cui studi sono poco sconosciuti. Johannes Schenck (1530-1598) realizzò una raccolta di osservazioni cliniche dall’Antichità ai suoi contemporanei. Nel primo volume (Observationes medicae de capite humano, 1584) egli discusse l’intera patologia della testa e della faccia. Almeno 16 di queste osservazioni fanno riferimento a pazienti con deficit di linguaggio di tipo afasico. Johannes Jakob Wepfer (1620-1695) scrisse numerosi testi di neuroanatomia, sulla vascolarizzazione del cervello e sull’apoplessia. Raccolse una collezione di casi neurologici (Observationes medico-practicae de affectibus capitis internis & externis) che fu pubblicata postuma. In almeno 15 delle 222 osservazioni è descritta la presenza di deficit afasici. Come atteso, in quasi ogni caso questi sono conseguenti a lesioni nell’emisfero di sinistra. Wepfer non pare tuttavia riconoscere tale asimmetria. Nella seconda parte di questo articolo si riporteranno i dati dello straordinario studio di Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud (1825) che delineò i principi fondamentali della correlazione anatomo-funzionale in neuropsicologia e applicò tali principi allo scopo di confermare empiricamente il ruolo dei lobi frontali nell’ideazione e programmazione del linguaggio orale.Parole chiave: Storia dell’afasiologia; Storia della neuropsicologia; Correlazione anatomo-funzionale; Correlazione mente-cervello; Storia del pensiero scientifico. Clinical and Anatomical Observations in the History of Neurolinguistics: Studies Predating Paul BrocaAbstract:Classical neurological and neuropsychological handbooks usually cite Paul Broca’s communication on the frontal lobes as the seat of articulated speech (1861) as the starting point in the history of the study of apha-sia as. In their seminal study, Benton and Joynt (1960) have collected numerous observations of aphasic patients from the Greek, Latin Medieval and Renaissance medical tradition and from the eighteenth-century Enlightenment literature. In none of the reported cases, however, were the crucial elements of aphasia, that is, is, on the one hand the distinction between language deficits, conceptual damage and speech disorders and, on the other hand, the association with lesions of the left brain hemisphere – clearly identified. The first part of this article describes the work of Johannes Schenck and Johannes Jakob Wepfer, two medical scientists in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, whose studies are almost entirely unknown. Johannes Schenck (1530-1598) completed a collection of clinical observations including both reports from antiquity and from his contemporaries. In his first volume (Observationes medicae de capite humano, Basel, 1584) he considers the major diseases of the head and face. At least 16 of these observations refer to patients with aphasia. Johannes Jakob Wepfer (1620-1695) published several texts on neuroanatomy, brain vascularization and apoplexy. He gathered a collection of neurological cases (Observationes medico-practicae de affectibus capitis internis & externis), which was published posthumously. At least 15 of the 222 observations included report the presence of aphasia. As expected, in almost all cases, aphasia was due to lesions in the left hemisphere. Wepfer, however, does not seem to have noted this asymmetry. In the second part of this article, the extraordinary study of Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud (1825) will be reported: Bouillaud outlined the basic principles of anatomo-functional correlations in neuropychology and applied these principles in order to confirm empirically the role of the frontal lobes in language and speech production.Keywords: Early History of Aphasiology; Early History of Neuropsychology; Anatomo-Functional Correlation of Language; Mind-Brain Relationship; History of Scientific Thought

    Sull'emigrazione : discorso del deputato Luigi Luzzatti pronunciato alla Camera dei deputati nella tornata del 29 novembre 1900 Roma : Camera dei deputati, 1900

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    Sull'emigrazione : discorso del deputato Luigi Luzzatti pronunciato alla Camera dei deputati nella tornata del 29 novembre 1900 Roma : Camera dei deputati, 1900 43 p. ; 21 cm

    Scienza e patria : studi e discorsi / di Luigi Luzzatti Firenze : Editore Quattrini, 1916

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    Scienza e patria : studi e discorsi / di Luigi Luzzatti Firenze : Editore Quattrini, 1916 XI, 569 p. ; 20 cm

    Sulla legge della circolazione cartacea : discorso del deputato Luzzati pronunziato alla Camera dei Deputati nelle tornate 4 e 5 febbraio 1874

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    Sulla legge della circolazione cartacea : discorso del deputato Luzzati pronunziato alla Camera dei Deputati nelle tornate 4 e 5 febbraio 1874 Roma : Tip. Eredi Botta, 1874 83 p. ; 23 cm

    Effects of Reading Proficiency and of Base and Whole-Word Frequency on Reading Noun- and Verb-Derived Words: An Eye-Tracking Study in Italian Primary School Children

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    The aim of this study is to assess the role of readers’ proficiency and of the base-word distributional properties on eye-movement behavior. Sixty-two typically developing children, attending 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade, were asked to read derived words in a sentence context. Target words were nouns derived from noun bases (e.g., umorista, ‘humorist’), which in Italian are shared by few derived words, and nouns derived from verb bases (e.g., punizione, ‘punishment’), which are shared by about 50 different inflected forms and several derived words. Data shows that base and word frequency affected first-fixation duration for nouns derived from noun bases, but in an opposite way: base frequency had a facilitative effect on first fixation, whereas word frequency exerted an inhibitory effect. These results were interpreted as a competition between early accessed base words (e.g., camino, chimney) and target words (e.g., caminetto, fireplace). For nouns derived from verb bases, an inhibitory base frequency effect but no word frequency effect was observed. These results suggest that syntactic context, calling for a noun in the target position, lead to an inhibitory effect when a verb base was detected, and made it difficult for readers to access the corresponding base+suffix combination (whole word) in the very early processing phases. Gaze duration was mainly affected by word frequency and length: for nouns derived from noun bases, this interaction was modulated by proficiency, as length effect was stronger for less proficient readers, while they were processing low-frequency words. For nouns derived from verb bases, though, all children, irrespective of their reading ability, showed sensitivity to the interaction within frequency of base+suffix combination (word frequency) and target length. Results of this study are consistent with those of other Italian studies that contrasted noun and verb processing, and confirm that distributional properties of morphemic constituents have a significant impact on the strategies used for processing morphologically complex words

    Effects of reading proficiency and of base and whole-word frequency on reading noun- and verb-derived words: an eye-tracking study in Italian primary school children

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    The aim of this study is to assess the role of readers' proficiency and of the base-word distributional properties on eye-movement behavior. Sixty-two typically developing children, attending 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade, were asked to read derived words in a sentence context. Target words were nouns derived from noun bases (e.g., umorista, 'humorist'), which in Italian are shared by few derived words, and nouns derived from verb bases (e.g., punizione, 'punishment'), which are shared by about 50 different inflected forms and several derived words. Data shows that base and word frequency affected first-fixation duration for nouns derived from noun bases, but in an opposite way: base frequency had a facilitative effect on first fixation, whereas word frequency exerted an inhibitory effect. These results were interpreted as a competition between early accessed base words (e.g., camino, chimney) and target words (e.g., caminetto, fireplace). For nouns derived from verb bases, an inhibitory base frequency effect but no word frequency effect was observed. These results suggest that syntactic context, calling for a noun in the target position, lead to an inhibitory effect when a verb base was detected, and made it difficult for readers to access the corresponding base+suffix combination (whole word) in the very early processing phases. Gaze duration was mainly affected by word frequency and length: for nouns derived from noun bases, this interaction was modulated by proficiency, as length effect was stronger for less proficient readers, while they were processing low-frequency words. For nouns derived from verb bases, though, all children, irrespective of their reading ability, showed sensitivity to the interaction within frequency of base+suffix combination (word frequency) and target length. Results of this study are consistent with those of other Italian studies that contrasted noun and verb processing, and confirm that distributional properties of morphemic constituents have a significant impact on the strategies used for processing morphologically complex words

    Clustering the lexicon in the brain: a meta-analysis of the neurofunctional evidence on noun and verb processing

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    Although it is widely accepted that nouns and verbs are functionally independent linguistic entities, it is less clear whether their processing recruits different brain areas. This issue is particularly relevant for those theories of lexical semantics (and, more in general, of cognition) that suggest the embodiment of abstract concepts, i.e., based strongly on perceptual and motoric representations. This paper presents a formal meta analysis of the neuroimaging evidence on noun and verb processing in order to address this dichotomy more effectively at the anatomical level. We used a hierarchical clustering algorithm that grouped fMRI/PET activation peaks solely on the basis of spatial proximity. Cluster specificity for grammatical class was then tested on the basis of the noun verb distribution of the activation peaks included in each cluster. 32 clusters were identified: three were associated with nouns across different tasks (in the right inferior temporal gyrus, the left angular gyrus, and the left inferior parietal gyrus); one with verbs across different tasks (in the posterior part of the right middle temporal gyrus); and three showed verb specificity in some tasks and noun specificity in others (in the left and right inferior frontal gyrus and the left insula). These results do not support the popular tenets that verb processing is predominantly based in the left frontal cortex and noun processing relies specifically on temporal regions; nor do they support the idea that verb lexical semantic representations are heavily based on embodied motoric information. Our findings suggest instead that the cerebral circuits deputed to noun and verb processing lie in close spatial proximity in a wide network including frontal, parietal, and temporal regions. The data also indicate a predominant \u2013 but not exclusive \u2013 left lateralization of the network

    Evaluating Semantic Knowledge Through a Semantic Association Task in Individuals With Dementia

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    Conceptual knowledge is supported by multiple semantic systems that are specialized for the analysis of different properties associated with object concepts. Various types of semantic association between concrete concepts—categorical (CA), encyclopedic (EA), functional (FA), and visual-encyclopedic (VEA) associations—were tested through a new picture-to-picture matching task (semantic association task, SAT). Forty individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD), 13 with behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bv-FTD), 6 with primary progressive aphasia (PPA), and 37 healthy participants were tested with the SAT. Within-group comparisons highlighted a global impairment of all types of semantic association in bv-FTD individuals but a disproportionate impairment of EA and FA, with relative sparing of CA and VEA, in AD individuals. Single-case analyses detected dissociations in all dementia groups. Conceptual knowledge can be selectively impaired in various types of neurodegenerative disease on the basis of the specific cognitive process that is disrupted
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