Abstract and concrete categories? Evidences from neurodegenerative diseases

作者：Catricala Eleonora^*; Della Rosa Pasquale A; Plebani Valentina; Vigliocco Gabriella; Cappa Stefano F

来源：Neuropsychologia, 2014, 64: 271-281.

DOI：10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2014.09.041

• Semantic memory
• Abstract concepts
• Concrete concepts
• Living-non living dissociation
• Emotion
• Social relation
• Alzheimer's disease
• Semantic variant of the primary progressive aphasia

We assessed the performance of patients with a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and of the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia (sv-PPA) in a series of tasks involving both abstract and concrete stimuli, which were controlled for most of the variables that have been shown to affect performance on lexical-semantic tasks.
Our aims were to compare the patients' performance on abstract and concrete stimuli and to assess category-effects within the abstract and concrete domains. The results showed: (i) a better performance on abstract than concrete concepts in sv-PPA patients. (ii) Category-related effects in the abstract domain, with emotion concepts being preserved in AD and social relations being selectively impaired in sv-PPA. In addition, a living non living dissociation may be (infrequently) observed in individual AD patients after controlling for an extensive set of potential confounds.
Thus, differences between and within the concrete or abstract domain may be present in patients with semantic memory disorders, mirroring the different brain regions involved by the different pathologies.

• 出版日期2014-11