The Neuropsychology of Proper Names

Abstract

The difference between common and proper names seems to derive from specific semantic characteristics of proper names. In particular, proper names refer to specific individual entities or events, and unlike common names, rarely map onto more general semantic characteristics (attributes, concepts, categories). This fact makes the link proper names have with their reference particularly fragile. Processing proper names seems, as a consequence, to require special cognitive and neural resources. Neuropsychological findings show that proper names and common names follow functionally distinct processing pathways. These pathways are neurally distinct and differently sensitive to focal or generalized brain damage, cognitive changes with age or lack of organic resources. Their precise location, depending on specific tasks, is still partly unknown.

Semantic category moderates phonological priming of proper name retrieval during tip-of-the-tongue states

“…Our data also offer behavioural evidence consistent with recent claims that proper and common names are represented differently at the neural level (Semenza, 2006(Semenza, , 2009. The present experiment found phonological priming between names without semantic overlap, suggesting that proper names are not competitive with each other, independent of other shared features.…”

Guess who? Investigating the proper name processing network by means of tDCS

“…Returning to the functional role of the left ATL in proper naming, several neuropsychological patients with neurodegenerative (Papagno and Capitani, 1998), neoplastic (Giussani et al, 2009), traumatic (Miceli et al, 2000), and vascular (Lucchelli and De Renzi, 1992;Verstichel et al, 1996;Reinkemeier et al, 1997;Saetti et al, 1999) brain lesions in this area showed selective proper name retrieval deficits (for a review see Semenza (2006Semenza ( , 2009, but see Semenza (2006) for controversial results). These data have been confirmed by a recent meta-analysis (Gainotti et al, 2007).…”

Naming and the Role of the Uncinate Fasciculus in Language Function

“…As reported, the UF connects the orbito-frontal cortex and the temporal pole, the former being involved in face encoding [39] and in processing famous faces or names [40], and the latter in naming famous faces [28,31,35,37,40,41]. Naming unique faces also requires regions related to the processing of emotions, such as the ventromedial prefrontal cortices [32], the UF being a crucial structure in emotion as part of the limbic circuit.…”

“…The main effect of task was significant, with a lower performance in naming people than in naming objects. One could argue that naming famous people is a more demanding task than naming objects [37], and therefore more vulnerable when cognitive resources decrease. However, a double dissociation between sites involved in naming objects and sites involved in naming faces has been demonstrated using DES during surgery [38], making unlikely an explanation only based on level of difficulty.…”