Working memory and semantic involvement in sentence processing: a case of pure progressive amnesia.
ED, a 83-year-old woman, meets the criteria of pure progressive amnesia, with gradual impairment of episodic and autobiographical memory, sparing of semantic processing and strong working memory (WM) deficit. The dissociation between disturbed WM and spared semantic processing permitted testing the role of WM in processing anaphors like pronouns or repeated names. Results showed a globally normal anaphoric behavior in two experiments requiring anaphoric processing in sentence production and comprehension. We suggest that preserved semantic processing in ED would have compensated for working memory deficit in anaphoric processing.
Fossard
Marion
M
Laboratoire Jacques Lordat, Université Toulouse le Mirail, France.
Rigalleau
François
F
Puel
Michèle
M
Nespoulous
Jean-Luc
JL
Viallard
Gérard
G
Démonet
Jean-François
JF
Cardebat
Dominique
D
D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000647:Amnesia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D001288:Attention; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010700:Phonetics; D011932:Reading; D012016:Reference Values; D012660:Semantics; D014705:Verbal Behavior