Gainotti G, Silveri M C, Daniele A, Giustolisi L
Institute of Neurology of the Catholic University of Rome, Italy.
Memory. 1995 Sep-Dec;3(3-4):247-64. doi: 10.1080/09658219508253153.
Previous studies of category-specific semantic disturbances have focused their attention on the intrinsic cognitive structure of these disorders. The present survey aims to evaluate the relationships between disrupted semantic category and localisation of the underlying brain damage, in order to establish whether the injured brain areas house just those neurophysiological mechanisms that should have critically contributed to the acquisition of the disrupted semantic categories. We took into account in our review two double dissociations concerning respectively: (1) the impairment of a specific linguistic category--we contrast those disorders selectively affecting verbs (action names) with those selectively affecting nouns (object names); (2) the impairment of a specific conceptual/semantic domain--we contrast disorders selectively affecting living beings with those preferentially affecting man-made artefacts. The hypothesis that different categories of knowledge may be closely intertwined with different sources of sensory-motor information, was substantially confirmed. The lesion preferentially encroached on the left frontal lobe when the category "verbs" was selectively affected; it involved the left temporal lobe and the posterior association areas when the category "nouns" was preferentially disrupted; it involved bilateral temporo-limbic structures and inferior temporal lobes when the category "living beings" was selectively disrupted; it usually encroached on the left fronto-parietal areas when man-made artefacts and body parts were preferentially affected. These data support the hypothesis that: (a) action schemata may critically contribute to the development of the semantic representation of verbs, (b) mechanisms of sensory integration may play an important role in establishing the semantic representation of nouns; (c) high-level visual processing and multi-modal sensory convergency may critically contribute to organising the semantic representation of living beings; (d) motor-kinaesthetic integration may play a leading role in developing the semantic representation of man-made artefacts.
以往关于类别特异性语义障碍的研究主要关注这些障碍的内在认知结构。本调查旨在评估语义类别破坏与潜在脑损伤定位之间的关系，以确定受损脑区是否仅包含那些对受损语义类别的习得有重要贡献的神经生理机制。在我们的综述中考虑了两种双重分离，分别涉及：（1）特定语言类别的损伤——我们将选择性影响动词（动作名称）的障碍与选择性影响名词（物体名称）的障碍进行对比；（2）特定概念/语义领域的损伤——我们将选择性影响生物的障碍与优先影响人造物品的障碍进行对比。不同类别的知识可能与不同的感觉运动信息来源紧密交织的假设得到了实质性证实。当“动词”类别受到选择性影响时，病变优先侵犯左额叶；当“名词”类别受到优先破坏时，病变累及左颞叶和后联合区；当“生物”类别受到选择性破坏时，病变累及双侧颞叶边缘结构和颞下回；当人造物品和身体部位受到优先影响时，病变通常侵犯左额顶叶区域。这些数据支持以下假设：（a）动作图式可能对动词语义表征的发展有重要贡献；（b）感觉整合机制可能在建立名词语义表征中起重要作用；（c）高级视觉处理和多模态感觉汇聚可能对生物语义表征的组织有重要贡献；（d）运动-动觉整合可能在人造物品语义表征的发展中起主导作用。
