title: Preservation of Person-Specific Semantic Knowledge in Semantic Dementia: Does Direct Personal Experience Have a Specific Role?
abstract: Semantic dementia patients seem to have better knowledge of information linked to the self. More specifically, despite having severe semantic impairment, these patients show that they have more general information about the people they know personally by direct experience than they do about other individuals they know indirectly. However, the role of direct personal experience remains debated because of confounding factors such as frequency, recency of exposure, and affective relevance. We performed an exploratory study comparing the performance of five semantic dementia patients with that of 10 matched healthy controls on the recognition (familiarity judgment) and identification (biographic information recall) of personally familiar names vs. famous names. As expected, intergroup comparisons indicated a semantic breakdown in semantic dementia patients as compared with healthy controls. Moreover, unlike healthy controls, the semantic dementia patients recognized and identified personally familiar names better than they did famous names. This pattern of results suggests that direct personal experience indeed plays a specific role in the relative preservation of person-specific semantic meaning in semantic dementia. We discuss the role of direct personal experience on the preservation of semantic knowledge and the potential neurophysiological mechanisms underlying these processes.
authors.affiliation: 'Neuroscience of Emotion and Affective Dynamics' laboratory, Department of Psychology, University of Geneva Geneva, Switzerland ; Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences, Campus Biotech, University of Geneva Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Julie A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Péron
authors.affiliation: Memory and Cognition laboratory, Institute of Psychology, University Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité Boulogne Billancourt, France ; INSERM-UMR-S894, Center of Psychiatry and Neurosciences, Sorbonne Paris Cité, University Paris Descartes Paris, France ; Institut Universitaire de France Paris, France.
authors.forename: Pascale
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Piolino
authors.affiliation: Memory Resource and Research Centre, Department of Neurology, Rennes University Hospital Rennes, France.
authors.forename: Sandrine Le
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Moal-Boursiquot
authors.affiliation: Memory Resource and Research Centre, Department of Neurology, Rennes University Hospital Rennes, France.
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Biseul
authors.affiliation: École des Hautes Études en Santé Publique, Department of Epidemiology Rennes, France.
authors.forename: Emmanuelle
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Leray
authors.affiliation: INSERM, U1077 Caen, France ; UMR-S1077, Université de Caen-Normandie Caen, France ; UMR-S1077, École Pratique des Hautes Études Caen, France ; University Hospital, UMR-S1077 Caen, France.
authors.forename: Laetitia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bon
authors.affiliation: INSERM, U1077 Caen, France ; UMR-S1077, Université de Caen-Normandie Caen, France ; UMR-S1077, École Pratique des Hautes Études Caen, France ; University Hospital, UMR-S1077 Caen, France.
authors.forename: Béatrice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Desgranges
authors.affiliation: INSERM, U1077 Caen, France ; UMR-S1077, Université de Caen-Normandie Caen, France ; UMR-S1077, École Pratique des Hautes Études Caen, France ; University Hospital, UMR-S1077 Caen, France.
authors.forename: Francis
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Eustache
authors.affiliation: Memory Resource and Research Centre, Department of Neurology, Rennes University Hospital Rennes, France ; INSERM, U1077 Caen, France ; UMR-S1077, Université de Caen-Normandie Caen, France ; UMR-S1077, École Pratique des Hautes Études Caen, France.
authors.forename: Serge
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Belliard
keywords: autobiographical memory; famous names; personal experience; personally familiar names; self; semantic dementia; semantic memory