Selective Proper Name Anomia: A Case Involving Only Contemporary Celebrities

Abstract

Following a left thalamic stroke, GR presented a complex neuropsychological picture characterised by learning defects and autobiographical amnesia, as well as proper name anomia. About 1 year after the stroke, GR recovered from his autobiographical amnesia, although his learning defects remained unchanged. Extensive testing demonstrated fine-grained, selective involvement of people's names in the absence of aphasia, dementia, or frontal disorders. The defect involved names (and not person knowledge) of contemporary personalities and spared historical and literary figures. Recovery from autobiographical amnesia showed that, in the case of autobiographical people, GR was not suffering from anomia, butfrom amnesia forwhole person knowledge: Indeed, noanomic defect persisted afterthe amnesiahadcleared. Since traditional category-specific lexical explanations proved to be unsuitable for this case, the nature of GR's dissociated proper name deficit is discussed in the light of Burton and Bruce's (1992) Interactive Activation Model and Brennen's (1993) Plausible Phonology Hypothesis.