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Delineation of single‐word semantic comprehension deficits in aphasia, with anatomical correlation
Author(s) -
Hart John,
Gordon Barry
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
annals of neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.764
H-Index - 296
eISSN - 1531-8249
pISSN - 0364-5134
DOI - 10.1002/ana.410270303
Subject(s) - aphasia , psychology , comprehension , semantic memory , perception , cognitive psychology , temporal lobe , semantic dementia , audiology , cognition , neuroscience , medicine , computer science , pathology , dementia , disease , frontotemporal dementia , epilepsy , programming language
In 3 of 18 aphasic patients pure deficits in semantic comprehension at the single‐word level were defined through a series of tasks that excluded possible confounding deficits in auditory perception, visual perception, or speech production. In these pure cases, deficits were found at the superordinate, equivalence, and subordinate levels of single‐word semantic processing. Pure semantic deficits were found to be correlated with damage to the left posterior temporal and inferior parietal region; patients whose damage spared this area did not evince such deficits, and the converse was also true. This study confirms the existence of separable deficits in semantic comprehension and points conclusively to the left posterior temporal and inferior parietal region as being critical for semantic processing. This anatomical localization is in keeping with anatomical studies from nonhuman primates, suggesting that these regions may be concerned with multimodal processing and integration of language.