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Category-specific Semantic Deficits:A Case Study
Han Zaizhu, Shu Hua, Bai Xiaoli, Bi Yanchao
2003, 35 (增刊):
23-28.
Brain-damaged patients with selective impairment to specific semantic categories of knowledge, like living things and nonliving things, have been reported repeatedly in the literature on various languages. These deficits have helped reveal how semantic knowledge is organized in the brain. In this study we present a Chinese patient, WJX, who has a selective deficit to living things compared to non-living things. His non-lexical processes (e.g. digit memory span, visual and phonetic discrimination, bucco-facial apraxia) are spared to a great extent. However, he often makes semantic errors in lexical tasks, including auditory/visual picture recognition, and oral picture naming. Furthermore, WJX makes a significantly larger percentage of errors on living things rather than non-living things. These results add further evidence from Chinese language to support the theory that brain damage can selectively affect semantic knowledge in the brain. We interpret these results as consistent with the proposal that the semantic system is organized along categorical dimensions.
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