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Accepted (AM)Open Access (License Unspecified), Open
Journal article
Olfactory language and semantic processing in anosmia: a neuropsychological case control study
NEUROCASE, v 27(1)
02 Jan 2021
PMID: 33400623
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
A longstanding debate within philosophy and neuroscience involves the extent to which sensory information is a necessary condition for conceptual knowledge. Much of our understanding of this relationship has been informed by examining the impact of congenital blindness and deafness on language and cognitive development. Relatively little is known about the lesser senses of smell and taste. Here we report a neuropsychological case-control study contrasting a young adult male (P01) diagnosed with anosmia (i.e. no olfaction) during early childhood relative to an age- and sex-matched control group. A structural MRI of P01's brain revealed profoundly atrophic/aplastic olfactory bulbs, and standardized smell testing confirmed his prior pediatric diagnosis of anosmia. Participants completed three language experiments examining comprehension, production, and subjective experiential ratings of odor salient words (e.g. sewer) and scenarios (e.g. fish market). P01's ratings of odor salience of single words were lower than all control participants, whereas his ratings on five other perceptual and affective dimensions were similar to controls. P01 produced unusual associations when cued to generate words that smelled similar to odor-neutral target words (e.g. ink -> plant). In narrative picture description for odor salient scenes (e.g. bakery), P01 was indistinguishable from controls. These results suggest that odor deprivation does not overtly impair functional language use. However, subtle lexical-semantic effects of anosmia may be revealed using sensitive linguistic measures.
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Details
- Title
- Olfactory language and semantic processing in anosmia: a neuropsychological case control study
- Publication Details
- NEUROCASE, v 27(1)
- Publisher
- ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD; ABINGDON
- Number of pages
- 10
- Grant note
- This work was funded by US Public Health Service [Grant R01 DC013063].
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Drexel University
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000605043700001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85098869812
- Other Identifier
- 991021860761604721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Clinical Neurology
- Psychiatry
- Psychology