Dissociation between function and manipulation in semantic representations of motor impaired subjects: A new test

ABSTRACT

A fundamental problem in semantic cognition is the representation of human concepts in the brain. Much of the knowledge acquired in the last decades comes from the study of dissociations found in patients with acquired difficulties in language, perception, and action. In particular, some deficits involve loss of knowledge about tools. The dissociation between two relevant aspects of tools, function and manipulation, has been the focus of several studies. In this paper, a new test designed to study the dissociation between function and manipulation is proposed and normative values for a control population are provided. This novel test was additionally administered to and evaluated in a group of Parkinson's disease patients. The Graded-Controlled Hub-and-Spoke model of Lambon Ralph, Jefferies, Patterson and Rogers was used as a theoretical guide to interpret the results.

KEYWORDS:

• Semantic memory
• semantic assessment
• action knowledge
• motor knowledge
• Parkinson’s disease

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their deep gratitude to Victoria Sanborn for her writing assistance and language editing. The authors are very grateful to Melisa Altamirano, Eliana Altamirano, Cecilia Mogues, Vanina Bertona (Speech Therapists), Julieta Mordini (Educational Psychologist), Karen Basabilbaso and Francesca Mariani (Psychologists) for interviewing the patients, to Patricia Mayorca, Florencia Colovitta and Nicolás Romero (advanced students of Psychology) for interviewing the control population and to Guillermo Echeverría for the graphic design. The authors are also very grateful to all the participants in the tests and, in particular, to the patients and their families. This work would not be possible without selfless collaboration. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Ignacio Amorin (MD, Institute of Neurology, Clinical Hospital, Montevideo), Dr. Jana Rodŕıguez Hertz and Dr. Yassine Hadjadj-Aoul for their collaboration. The authors would like to thank the editors and reviewers for their careful reading and for their thoughtful comments and sugestions that helped to improve this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The word manipulation refers to the handling of objects. It comes from the French manipulation, manipule, from the latin word manipulus (bundle, handle). The word ma- nipulus is formed from the latin words manus (hand) and plere (to fill).

Additional information

Funding

This research received important support from Prof. Dr. Eduardo Mizraji (School of Sciences, University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay) and Prof. Dr. Gerardo Rubino (INRIA, Rennes, France). This research received financial support from the University of the Republic (Uruguay) and from ECOS-Sud project U17E03 MASC: Mathematical Algorithms for Semantic Cognition.