Journal

The Japanese journal of neuropsychology

[Vol.33 No.1 contents]
Japanese/English

Full Text of this Article
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ArticleTitle What aspects of object knowledge are better preserved in semantic dementia?: Evidence from the cross-modal matching task
Language J
AuthorList Ayumi Morita, Yoshiyuki Nishio, Yukihiro Gomi, Hiroyuki Watanabe, Wataru Narita, Osamu Iizuka, Etsuko Mori
Affiliation Department of Behavioral Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Tohoku University School of Medicine
Publication Japanese Journal of Neuropsychology: 33 (1), 56-63, 2017
Received Jul 6, 2015
Accepted Aug 3, 2016
Abstract We devised a new semantic memory task, the cross-modal matching task, to investigate object knowledge with respect to multiple attributes (name and functional knowledge) in multiple modalities (visual, tactile and verbal). In the present study, three patients with semantic dementia (SD) were administered the cross-modal matching task. Verbal knowledge regarding the functional attributes of the objects was better preserved compared with the object names in all patients. There were no significant intermodal differences in object knowledge. The relative preservation of verbal knowledge regarding functions of objects may reflect the neuroanatomical characteristics of SD, in which the ventral visual pathway is preferentially involved, whereas the dorsal visual pathway is preserved until the advanced stage of the disease.
Keywords semantic memory, object knowledge, modality specificity, attribute specificity

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