Linking language and categorization: Evidence from aphasia
Linking language and categorization: Evidence from aphasia
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DOI：
10.1016/j.cortex.2012.06.006
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发表时间：
2013-05-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.6
通讯作者：
Mirman, Daniel
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Lupyan, Gary;Mirman, Daniel
除了在交际中使用外，语言似乎还有各种各样的交际外功能；干扰语言会干扰看似非语言任务的表现。先前的工作已经明确地将语言障碍与分类障碍联系起来。在这里，我们通过比较12名失语症参与者和12名年龄和教育程度匹配的对照组参与者的分类表现，系统地测试了这种联系。参与者被要求从20幅图片中选出符合特定标准的所有物体。标准要么是“高维”（即，对象共享许多特征，如“农场动物”），要么是“低维”（即，对象共享一个或几个特征，如“绿色的东西”）。失语症患者的低维分类能力受到选择性损害。这种选择性损伤与他们命名障碍的严重程度相关，而与失语症、语义障碍、损伤大小或损伤位置的总体严重程度无关。这些结果表明，当分类需要集中注意力和孤立个体特征时，语言障碍会特别影响分类，这一任务比高维分类需要更大程度的认知控制。研究结果为语言支持认知功能的假设提供了一些支持，尤其是选择任务相关刺激特征的能力。(c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd.版权所有。
In addition to its use in communication, language appears to have a variety of extra-communicative functions; disrupting language disrupts performance in seemingly non-linguistic tasks. Previous work has specifically linked linguistic impairments to categorization impairments. Here, we systematically tested this link by comparing categorization performance in a group of 12 participants with aphasia and 12 age- and education-matched control participants. Participants were asked to choose all of the objects that fit a specified criterion from sets of 20 pictured objects. The criterion was either "high-dimensional" (i.e., the objects shared many features, such as "farm animals") or "low-dimensional" (i.e., the objects shared one or a few features, such as "things that are green"). Participants with aphasia were selectively impaired on low-dimensional categorization. This selective impairment was correlated with the severity of their naming impairment and not with the overall severity of their aphasia, semantic impairment, lesion size, or lesion location. These results indicate that linguistic impairment impacts categorization specifically when that categorization requires focusing attention and isolating individual features - a task that requires a larger degree of cognitive control than high-dimensional categorization. The results offer some support for the hypothesis that language supports cognitive functioning, particularly the ability to select task-relevant stimulus features. (c) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.