The role of semantic distance in category-specific impairments for living things: Evidence from a case of semantic dementia

Zannino, Gian Daniele; Perri, Roberta; Pasqualetti, Patrizio; Paola, Margherita Di; Caltagirone, Carlo; Carlesimo, Giovanni Augusto

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2005.11.006

Cited by 32 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…E. Smith et al, 1974). In studies aimed at understanding categoryspecific impairments (McRae & Cree, 2002;Zannino, Perri, Pasqualetti, Di Paola, et al, 2006), feature information is commonly employed as well. Depending on the abstraction level of the cues used in the generation task (i.e., exemplars vs. category labels), the generated features differ (Storms & De Boeck, 1997).…”

Section: Feature Generation Frequencies Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exemplar by feature applicability matrices and other Dutch normative data for semantic concepts

Deyne

Verheyen

Ameel

et al. 2008

Behavior Research Methods

106

127

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Section: Feature Generation Frequencies Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exemplar by feature applicability matrices and other Dutch normative data for semantic concepts

Deyne

Verheyen

Ameel

et al. 2008

Behavior Research Methods

106

127

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“…Object knowledge representations have received considerable scientific study for over a century. In particular, neuropsychological lesion studies, and more recently neuroimaging studies, have identified brain areas involved in retrieving distinct conceptual categories of knowledge including living versus non-living things (Warrington and Shallice, 1984; Hillis and Caramazza, 1991; Silveri et al, 1997; Lu et al, 2002; Zannino et al, 2006). More specific object categories reported to be differentially represented in cortex include animals, tools, fruits/vegetables, faces, and places (Warrington and Shallice, 1984; Moore and Price, 1999; Kanwisher, 2000; Haxby et al, 2001; Caramazza and Mahon, 2003; Damasio et al, 2004; Martin, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Different categories of living and non-living sound-sources activate distinct cortical networks

Engel¹,

Frum²,

Puce³

et al. 2009

NeuroImage

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With regard to hearing perception, it remains unclear as to whether, or the extent to which, different conceptual categories of real-world sounds and related categorical knowledge are differentially represented in the brain. Semantic knowledge representations are reported to include the major divisions of living versus non-living things, plus more specific categories including animals, tools, biological motion, faces, and places-categories typically defined by their characteristic visual features. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify brain regions showing preferential activity to four categories of action sounds, which included non-vocal human and animal actions (living), plus mechanical and environmental sound-producing actions (nonliving). The results showed a striking antero-posterior division in cortical representations for sounds produced by living versus non-living sources. Additionally, there were several significant differences by category, depending on whether the task was category-specific (e.g. human or not) versus nonspecific (detect end-of-sound). In general, (1) human-produced sounds yielded robust activation in the bilateral posterior superior temporal sulci independent of task. Task demands modulated activation of left-lateralized fronto-parietal regions, bilateral insular cortices, and subcortical regions previously implicated in observation-execution matching, consistent with "embodied" and mirrorneuron network representations subserving recognition. (2) Animal action sounds preferentially activated the bilateral posterior insulae. (3) Mechanical sounds activated the anterior superior temporal gyri and parahippocampal cortices. (4) Environmental sounds preferentially activated dorsal occipital and medial parietal cortices. Overall, this multi-level dissociation of networks for preferentially representing distinct sound-source categories provides novel support for grounded cognition models that may underlie organizational principles for hearing perception.

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“…Recent findings in cognitive neuropsychology suggest that concepts of living things —animals in particular—may be especially vulnerable to certain kinds of brain damage (Capitani, Laiacona, Mahon, & Caramazza, 2003; Caramazza & Shelton, 1998; Forde & Humphreys, 1999; Tyler & Moss, 2001; Zannino, Perri, Pasqualetti, Di Paola, Caltagirone, & Carlesimo, 2006). Caramazza and his colleagues have suggested that impairments in reasoning about animals is due to a genuinely category- specific deficit in the domain of living things.…”

Section: Conservation Of Species Volume and Belief: Studies Of Possmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conservation of species, volume, and belief in patients with Alzheimer's disease: The issue of domain specificity and conceptual impairment

Zaitchik

Solomon²

2009

Cognitive Neuropsychology

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Two studies investigated whether patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) suffer high-level and category-specific impairment in the conceptual domain of living things. In Study 1, AD patients and healthy young and healthy elderly controls took part in three tasks: the Conservation of Species, Volume, and Belief. All 3 tasks required tracking an object’s identity in the face of irrelevant but salient transformations. Healthy young and elderly controls performed at or near ceiling on all tasks. AD patients were at or near ceiling on the Volume and Belief tasks, but only about half succeeded on the Species task. Study 2 demonstrated that the results were not due to simple task demands. AD patients’ failure to conserve species indicates that they are impaired in their theoretical understanding of living things, and their success on the Volume and Belief tasks suggests that the impairment is domain-specific. Two hypotheses are put forward to explain the phenomenon: the first, a category-specific account, holds that the intuitive theory of biology undergoes pervasive degradation; the second, a hybrid domain-general/domain-specific account, holds that impairment to domain-general processes such as executive function interacts with core cognition, the primitive elements that are the foundation of domain-specific knowledge.

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The role of semantic distance in category-specific impairments for living things: Evidence from a case of semantic dementia

Cited by 32 publications

References 39 publications

Exemplar by feature applicability matrices and other Dutch normative data for semantic concepts

Exemplar by feature applicability matrices and other Dutch normative data for semantic concepts

Different categories of living and non-living sound-sources activate distinct cortical networks

Conservation of species, volume, and belief in patients with Alzheimer's disease: The issue of domain specificity and conceptual impairment

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