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Are living and non-living category-specific deficits casually linked to impaired perceptual or associative knowledge? Evidence from a category-specific double dissociation

Lambon Ralph MA, Howard D, Nightingale G, Ellis A. W

Neurocase. 1998;4, 4-5.

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Abstract

Perhaps the most influential view of category-specific deficits is one in which the dissociation between living and non-living kinds reflects differential reliance on, or weighting of visual or associative-functional attributes. We present data collected from two patients, which question the apparent relationship between category-specific deficits and loss of specific attribute types. One patient with dementia of Alzheimer's type presented with relatively poor performance on living things but failed to show a difference between knowledge of visual and associative-functional information. The other patient with semantic dementia demonstrated relatively poor knowledge of visual attributes but failed to exhibit a category-specific impairment for animate kinds. In fact her comprehension and naming were slightly but significantly better for living things. The data are discussed with reference to various theories of category-specific impairment. We suggest that category-specific deficits for living things probably results from a combination of atrophy to medial and neocortical temporal structures, including the inferior temporal lobe. It is proposed that at the behavioural level, category-specific deficits arise when both critical identifying attributes of knowledge are lost and the intercorrelation between features causes disintegration of the category such that each exemplar 'regresses' towards a category prototype.

Bibliographic metadata

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Content type:
Publication type:
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Published date:
Journal title:
Volume:
4, 4-5
ISI Accession Number:
000076646800004
General notes:
  • 132TUNEUROCASE
Access state:
Active

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Record metadata

Manchester eScholar ID:
uk-ac-man-scw:1d8274
Created:
29th August, 2009, 14:29:24
Last modified by:
Lambon Ralph, Matthew
Last modified:
22nd June, 2012, 20:15:54

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