Comprehension of concrete and abstract words in patients with selective anterior temporal lobe resection and in patients with selective amygdalo-hippocampectomy

Abstract

The role of the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) in semantic memory is now firmly established. There is still controversy, however, regarding the specific role of this region in processing various types of concepts. There have been reports of patients suffering from semantic dementia (SD), a neurodegenerative condition in which the ATL is damaged bilaterally, who present with greater semantic impairment for concrete concepts than for abstract concepts, an effect known as reversal of the concreteness effect. This effect has previously been interpreted as reflecting degraded visual-perceptual features of objects due to damage to the inferior temporal lobes such as is observed in SD. Temporal lobe atrophy in SD, however, is bilateral even if it usually predominates to the left ATL, and it has been found to extend beyond the ATL, throughout the temporal lobes including medial and posterior temporal lobe regions. The question therefore remains whether greater impairment for concrete concepts results from damage to the ATL or from damage to the visual association cortex, and if unilateral damage can produce such a deficit. The aim of the present study was to investigate the processing of concrete and abstract words in rare patients who underwent a selective ATL surgical resection, and to compare their performance with that of patients with selective medial temporal lobe damage sparing the ATL region. Seven patients with a selective unilateral anterior temporal resection (ATL), 15 patients with a selective unilateral amygdalo-hippocampectomy (SeAH), and 15 healthy age- and education-matched controls underwent detailed neuropsychological assessment and carried out a semantic similarity judgment task evaluating their comprehension of concrete and abstract words. Results showed that both ATL and SeAH groups were significantly impaired on the semantic task relative to the control group. Within the patient groups, however, comprehension of concrete words was significantly more impaired than that of abstract words in the ATL group, while comprehension of abstract and concrete words was equally affected in the SeAH group. Results of this study suggest that the ATL region may play a critical role in processing concrete concepts, and that the reversal of the concreteness effect observed in ATL patients may result from damage to a categorical organization underlying the representation of concrete concepts.

Norms of age of acquisition and concreteness for 30,000 Dutch words

“…Do concrete and abstract words differ in affective connotation (Ferré, Guasch, Moldovan, & Sánchez-Casas, 2012;Kousta, Vigliocco, Vinson, Andrews, & Del Campo, 2011)? Do neuropsychological patients differ in the comprehension of concrete and abstract words (Loiselle et al, 2012)?…”

Neural changes associated with semantic processing in healthy aging despite intact behavioral performance

“…For instance, differences of activation in ATL and IPC have been reported between concrete and abstract words in neuroimaging studies, using functional magnetic resonance imaging or positron emission topography (Hoffman, Binney, & Lambon Ralph, 2014;Sabsevitz, Medler, Seidenberg, & Binder, 2005;Wang, Conder, Blitzer, & Shinkareva, 2010). Studies on clinical patients, with lesions in regions of the semantic network also showed differences in performance during semantic processing of abstract and concrete words (Loiselle, et al, 2012). The use of concrete and abstract words is thus of interest to explore age-related changes in semantic processing.…”

An exploration of the semantic network in Alzheimer's disease: Influence of emotion and concreteness of concepts

“…By contrast, abstract concepts, represented in an associative network, are more or less semantically close, depending on their semantic association (frequency of cooccurrence). Associated abstract words are frequently seen or encountered together (e.g., "In order to maintain peace and justice, the judge has to apply the law"; example from Loiselle et al, 2012), but they are not synonymous and do not belong to the same semantic category.…”

“…Observed across a range of lexical and semantic tasks, the concreteness effect refers to faster and more accurate processing of concrete concepts than of abstract ones (Paivio, 1991). Concrete concepts are tangible entities experienced via our senses, and are typically highly imageable (e.g., Crutch & Warrington, 2010;Loiselle et al, 2012). Abstract concepts, meanwhile, are typically linguistic concepts, and are poorly imageable (e.g., Monaghan & Ellis, 2002;Paivio, Yuille, & Madigan, 1968;Reilly & Kean, 2007; but see also Martín-Loeches, Hinojosa, Fern andez-Frías, & Rubia, 2001).…”