Authors:

Tyler, L.K., Moss, H.E., Patterson, K. & Hodges, J.R.

Reference:

Year of publication:

1997

CBU number:

3556

Abstract:

FM is a progressive aphasic patient whose language comprehension we studied over a 4-year period. We developed a variety of implicit and explicit tasks to chart progressive changes in the representation of linguistic knowledge (in particular, syntax and semantics) and the automatic and controlled processes which operate on that knowledge. The representation of FM's semantic knowledge remained essentially intact over the years, but she became increasing impaired at combining the meaning of words. She also showed progressive impairments in the processes of syntactic combination. Thus, FM's disease resulted in a progressive inability to engage in those combinational processes necessary for the normal comprehension of a spoken utterance. This is not a selective deficit in the traditional sense of the term, since aspects of both syntax and semantics are implicated; but it is selective in the sense that other aspects of language comprehension remain intact.