Dissociable components of phonological and lexical–semantic short-term memory and their relation to impaired word production in aphasia

Abstract

This study assesses the dissociability of phonological and lexical–semantic short-term memory (STM) in two aphasic patients, B.N. and T.M., and explores the relationship between their STM deficits and their word production impairment. Picture naming performance suggests phonological language production impairment in B.N. and lexical–semantic language production impairment in T.M. On STM tasks, B.N. presented phonological STM impairment with preserved lexical–semantic STM, while T.M. presented the reverse profile. These results reveal a double dissociation between phonological and lexical–semantic STM capacities and suggest that our patients' STM impairment may be selectively related to their language production deficits.

Keywords:

• Aphasia
• Verbal short-term memory
• Phonological short-term memory
• Lexical–semantic short-term memory
• Word production impairment.

We would like to thank B.N. and T.M. for their kind participation in this study. We also would like to thank Anne Hiernaux and Marie-Anne Van der Kaa for their help with the recruitment of the patients.

Support for this research was provided by the University of Liège doctoral fellowship for fields not eligible for FRIA (Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l'Industrie et dans l'Agriculture—Funds for research formation in industry and agriculture).

There are no conflicts of interest affecting this manuscript.

Notes

1 If the participant forgot an item but recalled the other items in the correct serial position, the participant had to give the position of the missed item to be credited with a point for the recalled items.