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Influence of conceptual knowledge on visual object discrimination
| CBU number: | 6519 |
| Authors: | BARENSE, M. & GRAHAM, K. |
| Reference: | Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, F114 |
| Year of publication: | 2007 |
| Abstract text: | Although recent studies have highlighted the key role played by the perirhinal cortex in complex object processing, it is not currently clear whether this region also contributes to semantic processing of objects. To address this issue, object processing for meaningful (e.g., familiar real world objects) and novel (e.g., barcodes, blobs, greebles) stimuli was investigated in individuals presenting with a significant loss of conceptual knowledge in the context of semantic dementia (SD), a progressive condition that affects anterior and medial temporal lobe (MTL) regions (including perirhinal cortex). The performance of this group was contrasted with that of participants with non-progressive focal lesions to the MTL (including perirhinal cortex) who typically show less impaired semantic memory. Subjects were administered a series of object discrimination tasks involving either meaningful or novel stimuli. When the objects possessed a high number of overlapping features, the two patient groups were impaired relative to controls on discriminations of both meaningful and novel stimuli. The two patient groups, however, demonstrated different profiles of impairment on meaningful compared to novel discriminations. Although they were impaired on both types of discriminations, the deficit in individuals with focal MTL damage was attenuated by the use of meaningful stimuli. By contrast, performance in the SD group did not benefit from the use of meaningful stimuli. These findings suggest that perceptual representations of complex familiar and novel objects (dependent upon perirhinal cortex) interact with higher-order abstract conceptual representations (dependent on antero-lateral temporal regions). This work was funded by the Medical Research Council and the Alzheimer’s Research Trust. |
| Annual report number: | CBUAR 52 |
| Keywords: | Conference Proceedings and Published Abstracts |