The Role of Semantic Memory in Object Use

Does semantic knowledge of objects mediate object selection and use? We present data from two patients that speak to this question. The first, DM, is a semantic dementia patient previously reported by Breedin, Saffran, and Coslett (1994) who, despite moderate to severe loss of functional and associative object knowledge, was nevertheless able to perform almost normally on single-object use and on more complex tests of naturalistic action. The second, HB, is a dementia patient who exhibited an executive disorder but performed as well as controls on a detailed battery of semantic memory and single-object use tests. Unlike DM, he made numerous errors on the naturalistic action tests, among which were errors of object selection and usage. Taken together, these data suggestthatintactsemantic memory forobjects is neithernecessary norsufficient to ensure good object utilisation in naturalistic action. The data cannot be accommodated by accounts postulating that action with objects is performed exclusively via no...

[1]  P. Osterrieth.  Le test de copie d'une figure complexe , 1944 .

[2]  E. Renzi,et al.  Ideational apraxia: A quantitative study , 1968 .

[3]  A. Paivio.  Imagery and verbal processes , 1972 .

[4]  A. Luria.  The Working Brain , 1973 .

[5]  E. Warrington.  Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology the Selective Impairment of Semantic Memory the Selective Impairment of Semantic Memory , 2022 .

[6]  G. Schwartz,et al.  Consciousness and Self-Regulation , 1976 .

[7]  J. J. Gibson.  The theory of affordances , 1977 .

[8]  R. Shaw,et al.  Perceiving, Acting and Knowing : Toward an Ecological Psychology , 1978 .

[9]  K. Poeck,et al.  Ideatory Apraxia in a Left-Handed Patient with Right-Sided Brain Lesion , 1980, Cortex.

[10]  S. Ullman.  Against direct perception , 1980, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[11]  A. W. Ellis.  Normality and pathology in cognitive functions , 1982 .

[12]  M. Beauvois,et al.  Optic aphasia: a process of interaction between vision and language. , 1982, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[13]  E. Warrington.  Neuropsychological studies of object recognition. , 1982, Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences.

[14]  E. Warrington,et al.  CATEGORY SPECIFIC ACCESS DYSPHASIA , 1983 .

[15]  R. Rafal,et al.  Visual problem solving in the absence of lexical semantics: Evidence from dementia , 1983, Brain and Cognition.

[16]  Richard A. Magill,et al.  Memory and control of action , 1983 .

[17]  E. Roy.  Neuropsychological Perspectives on Apraxia and Related Action Disorders , 1983 .

[18]  T. Shallice,et al.  Category specific semantic impairments , 1984 .

[19]  K. Poeck.  Clues To The Nature of Disruptions To Limb Praxis , 1985 .

[20]  E. Roy,et al.  Common Considerations In The Study of Limb, Verbal And Oral Apraxia , 1985 .

[21]  Eric A. Roy,et al.  Neuropsychological studies of apraxia and related disorders , 1985 .

[22]  D. G. MacKay.  A Theory of The Representation, Organization And Timing of Action With Implications For Sequencing Disorders , 1985 .

[23]  D. Stuss,et al.  The Frontal Lobes , 1986 .

[24]  Donald A. Norman,et al.  Attention to Action , 1986 .

[25]  T. Shallice.  From Neuropsychology to Mental Structure: Converging Operations: Specific Syndromes and Evidence from Normal Subjects , 1988 .

[26]  Glyn W. Humphreys,et al.  Semantic systems or system? Neuropsychological evidence re-examined , 1988 .

[27]  T. Shallice.  Specialisation within the semantic system , 1988 .

[28]  James L. McClelland,et al.  A computational model of semantic memory impairment: modality specificity and emergent category specificity. , 1991 .

[29]  A. Sirigu,et al.  The role of sensorimotor experience in object recognition. A case of multimodal agnosia. , 1991, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[30]  T. Shallice,et al.  Deficits in strategy application following frontal lobe damage in man. , 1991, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[31]  J. Hodges,et al.  Semantic dementia. Progressive fluent aphasia with temporal lobe atrophy. , 1992 .

[32]  M. Farah,et al.  A unified account of cognitive impairments following frontal lobe damage: the role of working memory in complex, organized behavior. , 1993, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[33]  Michael W. Montgomery,et al.  Cognitive theory and the study of everyday action disorders after brain damage , 1993 .

[34]  Alan D. Baddeley,et al.  Attention: Selection, Awareness, and Control , 1993 .

[35]  Julie S. Snowden,et al.  Semantic dementia: autobiographical contribution to preservation of meaning , 1994 .

[36]  H. Coslett,et al.  Reversal of the concreteness effect in a patient with semantic dementia , 1994 .

[37]  Myrna F. Schwartz,et al.  Of cabbages and things: Semantic memory from a neuropsychological perspective—A tutorial review. , 1994 .

[38]  S. Nadeau,et al.  Apraxia due to a pathologically documented thalamic infarction , 1994, Neurology.

[39]  Lorraine K. Tyler,et al.  Loss of Semantic Memory: Implications for the Modularity of Mind , 1994 .

[40]  M. Moscovitch,et al.  Attention and Performance 15: Conscious and Nonconscious Information Processing , 1994 .

[41]  Alfonso Caramazza,et al.  Cognitive and Neural Mechanisms Underlying Visual and Semantic Processing: Implications from Optic Aphasia , 1995, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[42]  K. C. Anderson,et al.  Progressive Ideomotor Apraxia - Evidence for a Selective Impairment of the Action Production System , 1995, Brain and Cognition.

[43]  MYRNA F. SCHWARTZ,et al.  Re‐examining the Role of Executive Functions in Routine Action Production a , 1995, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[44]  Jordan Grafman,et al.  Selective Impairments in Managerial Knowledge Following Pre-Frontal Cortex Damage , 1995, Cortex.

[45]  L. Buxbaum,et al.  Naturalistic action and praxis in callosal apraxia , 1995 .

[46]  Richard P. Cooper,et al.  Symbolic and continuous processes in the automatic selection of actions , 1995 .

[47]  E. Kaplan,et al.  A Nine—Word dementia version of the california verbal learning test , 1996 .

[48]  J. Grafman.  Plans, Actions, and Mental Sets: Managerial Knowledge Units in the Frontal Lobes , 2018, Integrating Theory and Practice in Clinical Neuropsychology.