Auditory naming and temporal lobe epilepsy.

Patients with left (i.e. language-dominant) temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) typically report word finding difficulties. However, these deficits are not reliably detected with traditional visual object naming tests. We administered both visual and auditory naming tests to left and right TLE patients and normal controls. We hypothesized that an auditory naming test might be more sensitive since it better simulates the conditions under which word finding problems occur in daily living. The left TLE group obtained significantly lower scores than other groups on auditory naming, whereas their performance on visual naming was indistinguishable from that of right TLE patients and normals. Furthermore, whereas cut-off scores on the auditory naming task predicted seizure focus laterality in 85% of patients, performance on the visual naming task predicted laterality in only 60% of patients. These findings suggest that compared with visual naming, as assessed in the present study, auditory naming may more accurately characterize and lateralize TLE-associated language dysfunction. These results also propose a more complex understanding of word retrieval that incorporates modality and contextual information.     

Auditory and visual naming tests: normative and patient data for accuracy, response time, and tip-of-the-tongue.

Naming is typically assessed with visual naming tasks, yet, some patients with genuine word-finding difficulty (evident in auditorily based discourse) show minimal difficulty on such measures. Evidence from cortical mapping, brain imaging and neuropsychological studies suggests that auditory naming measures might provide more relevant or at least, complementary information. We developed comparable auditory and visual naming tests and present normative data for accuracy, response time, and tip-of-the-tongue responses based on 100 controls. Test validity was supported by findings that left temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients (i.e., a population with expected naming difficulty) performed more poorly on auditory but not visual naming compared to right TLE patients (i.e., a population without expected naming difficulty). Internal and test-retest reliability coefficients were reasonable. Finally, test utility was assessed on an individual basis, and auditory but not visual naming performance predicted impairment.     

The syndrome of visual-verbal disjunction following transection of the splenium of the corpus callosum. Difficulty in verbalizing visual information in the non-dominant hemisphere

According to the methods proposed by Gazzaniga et al. (1965, 1967), various visual-language associative functions were examined in 3 patients who had undergone the transection of the splenium of the corpus callosum for a pineal operation.Case 1 presented partial disturbance in reading aloud and also in colour naming in the left visual field with intact object naming capacity. Case 2 presented disturbances in reading aloud and in colour naming as well as partial object naming difficulty in the left visual field. Similar tests for Case 3 revealed disturbances in reading aloud and mild colour naming difficulty in the left visual field. His colour naming disturbance could be observed only by bilateral colour presentation tests, and the results of the unilateral colour presentation tests were normal.Visual matching tests revealed that the perception of, or the recognition of visual information in the left visual field were well preserved in spite of the inability to describe the information verbally.Present investigations did not support the view of Gazzaniga et al. (1967, 1971) that the right hemisphere can understand the meaning of written words.In the colour naming tests of bilateral simultaneous presentation, visual extinction-like phenomena were observed in the left visual field. Visual matching tests by bilateral simultaneous colour presentation revealed, however, that colour perception or recognition is perfectly preserved in both visual fields in spite of the apparent colour neglect in the left visual field.     

Visuoverbal disconnection (optical aphasia) for objects, pictures, colors and faces with abstractive alexia

The case is reported of a patient who, after a left occipital infarction, presented a deficit in naming visually presented objects with neither aphasia, nor perturbation in the perceptive and associative processing of visual informations. This visuo-verbal disconnection was accompanied by disturbance of the semantic function when this was explored via the visual channel. In addition the patient showed an alexia which could be described as an abstraction defect. Finally, the patient showed a deficit in naming colors and faces, without evidence for agnosia. This observation argues in favor of maintaining a distinction between visual associative agnosia and optic aphasia. It also demonstrates that the naming deficit implies a deficit in extracting semantic values from visual informations such as objects or graphic symbols.     

Palinoptic phenomena as an error mechanism in resolving alexia without agraphia. A case report

Palinoptic, visual perseverative, or prolonged positive after-image phenomena have most often been met in right-sided occipital pathology. Less frequent with left-sided lesions they can be associated with the alexia without agraphia syndrome (with or without color naming deficit or hemifield loss). This is illustrated by our case in which rapidly fading visual reduplicative sensations--rather than linguistic incompetence--were apparently responsible for most of his paralexic errors.     

Characteristics of visual stimuli and naming performance in aphasic adults.

A confrontation naming task utilizing objects and pictures from the Porch Index of Communicative Ability was presented to 14 aphasic patients. Both initially correct and self-corrected naming responses were compared for the two sets of visual stimuli. In contrast to some studies that have also varied the physical characteristics of size, color and dimensionality, the present study (as well as two other studies) found no significant differences in naming performance for aphasic patients. This evidence would suggest that a choice between pictures and objects will seldom be crucial to diagnosis or therapy with aphasic naming problems.     

A normal' category-specific advantage for naming living things.

'Artefactual' accounts of category-specific disorders for living things have highlighted that compared to nonliving things, living things have lower name frequency, lower concept familiarity and greater visual complexity and greater within-category structural similarity or 'visual crowding' [7]. These hypotheses imply that deficits for living things are an exaggeration of some 'normal tendency'. Contrary to these notions, we found that normal subjects were consistently worse at naming nonliving than living things in a speeded presentation paradigm. Moreover, their naming was not predicted by concept familiarity, name frequency or visual complexity; however, a novel measure of visual familiarity (i.e. for the appearance of things) did significantly predict naming. We propose that under speeded conditions, normal subjects find nonliving things harder to name because their representations are less visually predictable than for living things (i.e. nonliving things show greater within-item structural variability). Finally, because nonliving things have multiple representations in the real world, this may lower the probability of finding impaired naming and recognition in this category.     

Distribution of auditory and visual naming sites in nonlesional temporal lobe epilepsy patients and patients with space-occupying temporal lobe lesions

PURPOSE: Current knowledge regarding the topography of essential language cortex is based primarily on stimulation mapping studies of nonlesional epilepsy patients. We sought to determine whether space-occupying temporal lobe lesions are associated with a similar topography of language sites, as this information would be useful in surgical planning. METHODS: We retrospectively compared the topography of auditory and visual naming sites in 25 nonlesional temporal lobe epilepsy patients ("nonlesional") and 18 patients with space-occupying lesions ("lesional") who underwent cortical language mapping before left temporal resection. RESULTS: Both groups exhibited a similar pattern of auditory naming sites anterior to visual and dual (auditory-visual) naming sites; no group differences were specific to auditory or visual naming sites. However, significantly fewer lesional (10 of 20) compared with nonlesional patients (21 of 25) exhibited any naming sites in the temporal region (p=0.04). Although the proportion of naming sites on the superior temporal gyrus was similar between groups, naming sites were found on the middle temporal gyrus in 13 of 25 nonlesional patients, yet in only one of 18 lesional patients (p=0.002). Across groups, patients with visual naming sites were older than patients without visual naming sites identified (p=0.02). CONCLUSIONS: The precise location of essential language cortex cannot be reliably inferred from anatomic landmarks or patient-related variables. As time constraints are a common quandary in stimulation mapping, the different patterns reported here for patients with and without space-occupying lesions can be used to guide mapping strategies, thereby increasing the efficiency by which positive naming sites are identified.     

Naming and discrimination of Chinese ideograms presented in the right and left visual fields

In a naming experiment Chinese subjects showed no significant visual field advantage for naming tachistoscopically presented Chinese characters. However, both Chinese and North American subjects tended to discriminate characters presented in the left visual field more accurately. The results are discussed in terms of the theories of hemispheric specialization.     

Boston Naming Test results for healthy older Australians: A longitudinal and cross-sectional study

This study reports on a sample of normal Australian elderly who were assessed for naming ability using the Boston Naming Test (BNT). The study aimed to examine and compare the changes in naming ability, using both longitudinal and cross-sectional analysis, and determine the relationships between naming ability and age, educational level, visual acuity and gender and cultural relevance. Contradictory findings were produced regarding age and were dependent on the research design. Longitudinal analysis showed no age-related change in naming ability in subjects over a four-period. In contrast, cross-sectional analysis showed a weak but significant correlation between age and naming ability. Educational level, visual acuity and gender were unrelated to changes in naming ability over time, and unrelated to naming ability across the cohort of elderly. The Australian elderly performed better on the modified Australian version of the BNT than on the original American version. Thus, clinicians need to be cautious when interpreting the results of the BNT for elderly and for populations outside North America. The results of this study also indicate a need for further longitudinal research of a greater duration to establish age-related decline in naming ability.     

Category-specific neural processing for naming pictures of animals and naming pictures of tools: An ALE meta-analysis

Using activation-likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis, we identified brain areas that are invoked when people name pictures of animals and pictures of tools. We found that naming animals and naming tools invoked separate distributed networks in the brain. Specifically, we found that naming animals invoked greater responses than naming tools in frontal lobe structures that are typically modulated by emotional content and task demands, and in a number of visual areas in the ventral stream. In contrast, naming tools invoked greater responses in a different set of areas in the ventral stream than those invoked by naming animals. Naming tools also invoked greater responses than naming animals in motor areas in the frontal lobe as well as in sensory areas in the parietal lobe. The only overlapping sites of activation that we found for naming these two categories of objects were in the left pars triangularis, the left inferior temporal gyrus, and the left parahippocampal gyrus. Taken together, our meta-analysis reveals that animals and tools are categorically represented in visual areas but show convergence in higher-order associative areas in the temporal and frontal lobes in regions that are typically regarded as being involved in memory and/or semantic processing. Our results also reveal that naming tools not only engages visual areas in the ventral stream but also a fronto-parietal network associated with tool use. Whether or not this network associated with tool use contributes directly to recognition will require further investigation.     

Visual object processing in schizophrenia: evidence for an associative agnosic deficit

Early studies suggested visual form perception impairment in schizophrenia. To re-examine this claim and characterise the deficit neuropsychologically, 41 schizophrenic patients were administered tests sensitive to different levels of visual object perception and recognition. Intellectually well-preserved patients were examined separately on these and additional tests. Single case analysis was also applied to four patients showing varying degrees of general intellectual impairment. As a group, the patients showed little impairment on tests of early visual object perception, but greater impairment on higher-level visual processing tests, in particular object recognition and naming. This held true for patients with preserved general intellectual function. Single case analysis suggested that patients with schizophrenia have a selective deficit affecting object recognition and identification, with a pattern similar to visual associative agnosia in neurological patients.     

Testing for nominal dysphasia.

In this paper we have described the construction of a graded naming test that makes the distinction between object and proper names. This distinction was prompted by a single case study of a patient who showed a specific naming impairment for a particular class of proper names. Naming vocabulary was found to be highly correlated with other measures of verbal intelligence and we have discussed the use of the graded naming test as a tool for clinical assessment and diagnosis. The results of the naming test of the left hemisphere group showed that category-specific naming impairment along the object/proper name distinction is relatively uncommon in any gross form. Object naming was most impaired in patients with lesions of the temporal lobe.