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The importance of multiple assessments of object knowledge in semantic dementia: The case of the familiar objects task
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

The importance of multiple assessments of object knowledge in semantic dementia: The case of the familiar objects task

Evangelia G. Chrysikou, Tania Giovannetti, Denene M. Wambach, Abigail C. Lyon, Murray Grossman and David J. Libon
Neurocase, v 17(1)
26 Jan 2011
PMID: 20812137
url
https://europepmc.org/articles/pmc3303167View
Accepted (AM)Open Access (License Unspecified) Open

Abstract

Episodic memory Familiar objects Object knowledge Semantic dementia Semantic memory
Semantic dementia (SD) is characterized by a dramatic loss of conceptual knowledge about the meaning of words and the identity of objects. Previous research has suggested that SD patients' knowledge is differentially influenced by the disease and may decline at different degrees depending on a patient's everyday familiarity with certain items. However, no study has examined (a) semantic knowledge deterioration and (b) the potential significance of autobiographical experience for the maintenance of object concepts in the same cohort of SD patients by using comprehensive assessments of different aspects of object knowledge across an experience-based, distributed semantic memory network. Here, we tested four SD patients and three Alzheimer's disease (AD) control patients using a range of tasks - including naming, gesture generation, and autobiographical knowledge - with personally familiar objects or perceptually similar or different object analogs. Our results showed dissociations between performance on naming relative to other assessments of object knowledge between SD and AD patients, though we did not observe a reliable familiar objects advantage. We discuss different factors that may account for these findings, as well as their implications for research on SD.

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Clinical Neurology
Psychiatry
Psychology
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