Remembering a name: Neuropsychological validity studies and a computer proposal for detection of anomia

Abstract

There are contradictory results or lack of validity studies concerning the naming function and brain laterality. Although anomia is a frequent symptom of memory impairment, and the most relevant symptom of aphasia, few studies have been conducted to evaluate its validity for detecting patients with left-hemisphere damage (LD), as per the MeSH definition. Objective: To validate a paper-and-pencil confrontation naming test (CNT) according to side of brain injury; to select a valid and reliable abbreviated CNT wherein the effect of demographic variables is minimized; and to use the selected CNT to develop a computer-aided confrontation-naming evaluation (CACNE). Methods: Control data were obtained from 213 healthy participants (HP) aged 15 to 89 years. A subsample of 106 HP was demographically matched to 39 patients with LD and 40 patients with right-hemisphere damage (RD). Anomia definition and CNT cues were considered for the CACNE. Results: Test-retest and inter-rater reliability, internal consistency, and validity for detecting LD were demonstrated. A significant age effect was observed in HP. The CACNE was developed to detect anomia in interaction with environmental interventions. Conclusion: The inconsistencies observed in the CNT studies were probably due to the presence of anomia in almost 50% of the RD patients.

Story reading with incidental comprehension and memory: left hemisphere dominance

“…In the present research, this ability may have enabled the (distracted) participants to grasp some gist keywords that were still reverberating in the working memory circuits, from RE, to generate an inference during RC. Curiously, the observed pattern of laterality in the free or spontaneous recall of the story (UC), was similar to that found in the free or spontaneous recall of a confrontation naming task, in a previous study 31 . This finding may be easier to understand under the following assumption: a word, sentence, and story are all language structural and semantic units, organized and encoded in different episodic contexts.…”

“…Maybe for these reasons, the laterality for UC was similar to that of uncued picture naming, even if in the present task of story recall non-verbal stimuli were absent (see 'visual imagery' in the Introduction) 5 . Lastly, it is possible that in the current and previous study 31 , apart from the serious impairment of LHI, the moderate impairment of RHI was probably due to the contribution of the right hemisphere to memory function in general, independently of the type of input.…”

“…Vertical bars denote 0.95 confidence intervals. Significant pairwise comparisons: * p < 0.005, **p < 0.0005. network that is more left-lateralized was observed when the task involved language production aside from comprehension ( for review, see two previous studies 28,31 ). Likewise, and considering the emotional content of the current narrative, a left-lateralized pattern was observed in patients with temporal lobe impairments who were evaluated regarding memory for stories and emotional material 37,38 .…”

“…Among these volunteers, control data were obtained from 109 healthy participants (HP), who were community-dwellers without any known neurological or psychiatric disease. The recruitment method is further described elsewhere 31 .…”