Miozzo Michele, Fischer-Baum Simon, Postman Jeffrey
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Cogn Neuropsychol. 2008 Sep;25(6):853-73. doi: 10.1080/02643290802365151.
We describe case J.P. who, following a left inferior frontal lesion, made frequent role confusions in comprehension and production (e.g., saying "The boy kicks the girl" for a picture showing a girl kicking a boy). J.P.'s preserved ability to judge the grammaticality of sentences rules out a syntactic deficit as the primary cause of the role confusions. Thematic role assignment is also required with spatial prepositions such as in or above, and J.P.'s thematic role assignment was also severely impaired with spatial prepositions. We capitalized on prior linguistic analyses and behavioural studies to design accurate tests of the semantics of spatial terms, spatial relations, and critical features of objects. Fine-grain semantic tests revealed that the semantics of spatial terms and objects was intact. We hypothesize that J.P.'s role confusions reflected a failure to integrate objects within semantic representations that define the thematic roles. Our data suggest that properties of objects and thematic roles are specified by distinct semantic processes, which have different brain localizations. J.P.'s lesion further suggests that left inferior frontal regions are critical in thematic role assignment, thus contributing to the understanding of the linguistic functions of these regions.
我们描述了病例J.P.，其左额下回出现病变后，在理解和表达中频繁出现角色混淆（例如，对于一幅显示女孩踢男孩的图片，却说“男孩踢女孩”）。J.P.判断句子语法正确性的能力未受损，这排除了句法缺陷是角色混淆的主要原因。在使用诸如“in”或“above”等空间介词时也需要进行主题角色分配，而J.P.在使用空间介词时的主题角色分配也严重受损。我们利用先前的语言分析和行为研究来设计关于空间术语语义、空间关系和物体关键特征的精确测试。细粒度语义测试表明，空间术语和物体的语义是完整的。我们假设，J.P.的角色混淆反映了在定义主题角色的语义表征中未能整合物体。我们的数据表明，物体属性和主题角色由不同的语义过程指定，这些过程具有不同的脑定位。J.P.的病变进一步表明，左额下回区域在主题角色分配中至关重要，从而有助于理解这些区域的语言功能。
