A behavioral study of the nature of verb–noun dissociation in the nonfluent variant of primary progressive aphasia

Background: Patients with nonfluent/agrammatic variant primary progressive aphasia (nfvPPA) have more difficulty producing verbs than nouns, but the reason for this discrepancy remains unclear. One possibility is that it results from impaired access to motor programs integral to semantic representations of actions. Another is that the disruption affects specific lexical or grammatical features of verbs.

Aims: To use an oral picture naming task to examine the effects of motor associations on verb production in patients with nfvPPA.

Methods & Procedures: We administered noun and verb naming tasks to 12 nfvPPA patients and 9 controls. We varied the manipulability of target items across categories as a proxy for the degree to which lexical access depends on motor knowledge.

Outcomes & Results: Nonfluent PPA patients were significantly more impaired in both noun and verb naming compared to control participants. However, the nfvPPA patients were significantly more impaired in naming verbs than nouns, but there was no effect of manipulability.

Conclusions: The results suggest that the verb naming deficit in nfvPPA is not directly related to impaired motor knowledge and is more likely to be related to other properties that distinguish verbs from nouns.     

中国手语名转动词现象研究

本文以《中国手语》为考察对象，通过分析发现中国手语中部分“动宾一体”的词语为名转动词。在中国手语中，与日常生活相关的名词、动态名词转为动词的几率最高，中国手语的名转动词现象是在动词词汇化的过程中，与表示某种行为的轻动词在词汇层面上组合的结果。     

Argument structure deficit in aphasia: it’s not all about verbs

Background: Verb difficulties in aphasia often co-occur with difficulties specifying argument structure of the sentence. Recent exploration of verb and argument structure deficits has shown dissociations between lexical semantic information, argument structure information, and production of the argument structure. There is currently limited evidence regarding the implications of these dissociations for treatment.

Aims: This paper explores the patterns of generalisation following intervention to increase access to verb argument structure for a 62-year-old woman (YR) with chronic agrammatic aphasia. YR had good access to nouns and verbs in picture naming alongside severe sentence production difficulties characterised by difficulty specifying argument structure.

Methods & Procedures: Detailed pre-therapy language assessment investigated single word and sentence comprehension and production, with a specific focus on whether YR could produce argument structure. Intervention targeted verb retrieval, awareness of argument structure information, cueing of arguments, and production of argument and syntactic structure involving transitive verbs. A single-subject multiple baseline design was used to monitor the effectiveness of treatment. The primary outcome measure was accuracy of two-argument structures in sentence production to picture and sentence generation to written word tasks, with effects on treated and untreated verbs considered. Other measures of sentence comprehension and production were also obtained to determine any further generalisation.

Outcomes & Results: Following the first phase of therapy, YR showed a significant improvement in the production of two-argument structures across both treated and untreated verbs in sentence production to pictures, with a corresponding significant reduction in incomplete argument structures. No change was seen in two-argument structures in sentence generation to written words. After the second phase of therapy, significant gains were seen in two-argument structures with both treated and untreated verbs in the sentence generation task while sentence production to picture performance maintained. Gains in sentence generation were more vulnerable following the cessation of therapy. Other tasks of sentence production also improved with no change seen on a control task.

Conclusions: Argument structure can be selectively impaired in aphasia, in the presence of good verb and noun access at the single word level, and targeted in therapy to improve sentence production. The study highlights the complexity of the relationship between verbs and argument structure and that argument structure difficulties are not always a consequence of a semantic verb deficit. Generalised improvement in argument structure production provides evidence that therapy targeted general processes rather than lexically specified argument structure information.     

Frontopolar activity and connectivity support dynamic conscious augmentation of creative state

No ability is more valued in the modern innovation‐fueled economy than thinking creatively on demand, and the “thinking cap” capacity to augment state creativity (i.e., to try and succeed at thinking more creatively) is of broad importance for education and a rich mental life. Although brain‐based creativity research has focused on static individual differences in trait creativity, less is known about changes in creative state within an individual. How does the brain augment state creativity when creative thinking is required? Can augmented creative state be consciously engaged and disengaged dynamically across time? Using a novel “thin slice” creativity paradigm in 55 fMRI participants performing verb‐generation, we successfully cued large, conscious, short‐duration increases in state creativity, indexed quantitatively by a measure of semantic distance derived via latent semantic analysis. A region of left frontopolar cortex, previously associated with creative integration of semantic information, exhibited increased activity and functional connectivity to anterior cingulate gyrus and right frontopolar cortex during cued augmentation of state creativity. Individual differences in the extent of increased activity in this region predicted individual differences in the extent to which participants were able to successfully augment state creative performance after accounting for trait creativity and intelligence. Hum Brain Mapp 36:923–934, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Effects of chronic drinking on verb generation: an event related potential study

In alcohol dependent individuals, abnormalities in brain functioning have been revealed using event-related potential (ERP) methods. In the present study, we investigated whether in non-alcohol dependent drinkers functioning of the brain is also compromised as a function of recent and lifetime drinking history (LDH). An ERP verb generation task consisting of two conditions (generating verbs describing the use of visually presented nouns versus reading nouns aloud) was used; subtracting ERPs in the latter condition from those in the former should reveal the sequence of brain processes involved in verb generation. Four groups were included, consisting of individuals drinking either lightly, moderately, heavily, or excessively (overall mean age 46.6 years). Participants were sober at the time of testing. Although the excessive group had the highest per cent retrieval errors, there was no continuous relationship between this score and amount of alcohol consumption. However, number of glasses per week affected differential ERPs associated with verb generation both at short (120-220 ms, mid-frontal sites) and at longer latencies (from 700 ms on),left-temporal and right-frontal electrode sites (T7, F6). It is concluded that moderate, heavy, and excessive drinkers, compared to light drinkers, show abnormal brain potentials associated with verb generation over frontal and temporal areas. Moderate to excessive drinking alters some but not all brain processes involved in verb generation. In particular the frontal and temporal brain areas appear to be vulnerable for the effects of chronic lifetime drinking.     

医学英语的词法特征

目的 探讨医学英语的词法特征.方法 通过归纳和分析找出医学英语在词法方面的特征.结果 作为一种特殊用途英语,医学英语在词汇来源、两栖词汇、复合词汇、非谓语动词、书面语词汇等的使用方面具有不同于普通英语的词法特征. 结论 了解医学英语的词法特征有利于提高医学英语的教学水平.     

Verb morphology in Catalan and Spanish in children with Specific Language Impairment: a developmental study

In this article we examine language processing and development in Catalan or Spanish‐speaking children with SLI, focusing on the study of the verb. We analyse the key initial phase of its process of acquisition and aim to define common features of the SLI group that distinguish them from children with normal language development. We intend to identify more precisely the kind of delay shown by these children in a language with a rich verb morphology, in terms of both structure and chronology. The sample comprised 18 Catalan‐Spanish bilingual pre‐school children, assigned to three groups of six; an SLI group and two control groups, one matched for age and the other matched for MLU‐w. Developmental data were obtained by recording situations of spontaneous speech at two different time points. Certain differences were found between groups in verb production. Production of verb inflection by children with SLI was only partial at the first evaluation; they maintained the same percentage of errors after a year. The patterns of correct and incorrect verb forms found in Catalan and Spanish do not corroborate the EOI hypothesis, but they support the Surface Hypothesis, given that the number of errors is not particularly high. This suggests the presence of limitations in subjects' processing ability, linked to the typological characteristics of the specific language being learnt.     

Cognitive state verbs and complement clauses in children with SLI and their typically developing peers

This study investigated the use of cognitive state verbs (CSVs) and complement clauses in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and their typically developing (TD) peers. In Study 1, conversational samples from 23 children with SLI (M?=?6;2), 24 age-matched TD children (M?=?6;2) and 21 vocabulary-matched TD children (M?=?4;9) were analysed for the proportional use of CSVs, verb types, co-occurrence with complement clauses and syntactic frame types. Children in all three groups had similar performance in all measures. Study 2 compared a subset of children on CSV use in conversational and narrative/expository samples. Conversation elicited more high-frequency verbs, whereas narrative/expository samples elicited more low-frequency verbs. Children with SLI used fewer different verbs and were less likely to combine low-frequency verbs with a complement clause than their TD peers. We conclude that these observed deficits can be attributed to limitations in lexical knowledge rather than a syntactic deficit.     

Verb and noun generation tasks in Huntington's disease.

We compared noun- and verb-generation tasks in a demented group (n = 9, Dementia Rating Scale < or = 129) and in a non-demented group (n = 17, Dementia Rating Scale > 129) of Huntington's disease (HD) patients compared to 26 matched normal subjects. We did not find a specific deficit for verb production in non-demented patients who had a performance similar to but weaker than that of the controls across the four tasks. The profile of results was different in the demented group because, apart from a global deficit whatever the task in comparison with both non-demented and control groups, the demented patients exhibited increased difficulties in the two tasks implying verb production. The deficit of verb production observed in demented HD patients is discussed in relation to the damage to the motor loop in HD patients at later stages of disease.     

Localization of Language-Related Cortex withO-Labeled Water PET in Patients with Gliomas

Measurement of relative cerebral blood flow (CBF) with¹⁵O-labeled water PET has been widely used for brain mapping experiments on language functions in normal volunteers and patients with epilepsy. We focused on the question of whether PET during speech activation is an appropriate method for noninvasive determination of language-related cortex in patients with brain tumors. Furthermore, the suitability of the method for determination of hemispheric language dominance was examined and compared to the results of the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory. Ten right-handed and six left-handed patients with gliomas were examined prior to surgery while repeatedly performing word repetition and verb generation tasks. A set of volumes of interest (VOIs) was drawn on coregistered MRI in order to account for anatomic variability as well as anatomical alterations due to tumor mass effect. Repetition of nouns did not produce significant hemispheric differences. During stimulation by verb generation, reliable lateralized activations of Broca's area and supplementary motor area were detected in all right-handed patients. Of the left-handed patients, two showed clear right lateralization, two activated Broca's area bilaterally, and two had a pattern similar to that of right-handers. Patients with bilateral activations showed the strongest tendency toward bihandedness according to the handedness inventory. Lateralization of supplementary motor area in left-handers corresponded to lateralized activity in Broca's area. Tumors in the vicinity of language-related regions did not alter activation responses. In conclusion, measurement of CBF changes during verb generation permits identification of language-related areas in patients with gliomas with strong lateralization related to hemispheric dominance. These findings may be of particular clinical interest for left-handed patients.