Action naming with impaired semantics: Neuropsychological evidencecontrasting naming and reading for objects and verbs

Abstract

We contrast naming from pictures, and reading words, for objects and verbs (actions relating to the objects) in a patient with a large, posterior left-hemisphere lesion. We present evidence for spared picture naming for verbs relative to objects, whilst the opposite pattern of sparing occurred in reading. Objects were also spared relative to verbs in tasks requiring that written words be matched to either pictures or auditory words, in the presence of semantically related or unrelated distractors. We conclude that verb semantics were more impaired than semantic knowledge for objects, and that the better semantic knowledge for object names supported word reading. With pictures, however, action verb retrieval was maintained through a nonsemantic route from vision to action, or though preserved right-hemisphere “action semantics.”

Acknowledgments

We thank TP for his good humour and patience when taking part in these experiments. The work was supported by a grant from ESRC to the first author and a project grant from the Wellcome Trust and a programme grant from the MRC to the second and third authors.