Background. People affected by Alzheimer Dementia (AD) or Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) present with impairments in lexical/semantic processing. Picture naming could be seen as a lexical/semantic task which rests on the activation of perceptual, semantic, and phonological representations. The poor performance of MCI/AD individuals in picture naming has been accounted for in terms of deficits of either the perceptual, semantic, or phonological stages (e.g., Faust, Balota, & Multhaup, 2004) Aim. To disentangle the source of this deficit we compared the cumulative semantic interference effect (CSIE; Howard, Nickels, Coltheart, & Cole-Virtue, 2006) and the repetition priming effect (RPE) obtained with a sample of 20 healthy elderly to that obtained with a sample of 20 MCI/AD elderly. Method. The RPE refers to an increase in performance for repeated items compared to unrepeated items. The CSIE defines a linear increase in the naming RTs which is function of the already named pictures belonging to the same semantic category to which the named picture belongs. Results. CSIE was present in the healthy sample and absent in the MCI/AD sample. Instead, both groups showed comparable repetition priming effects. Conclusion. The impairment in picture naming exhibited by MCI/AD individuals is due to an inefficient semantic access. Ref. Faust, M. E., Balota, D. A., & Multhaup, K. S. (2004). Neuropsychology, 18, 526-536. Howard, D., Nickels, L., Coltheart, M., & Cole-Virtue, J. (2006). Cognition, 100, 464–482.
THE CUMULATIVE SEMANTIC INTERFERENCE EFFECT IN NORMAL AND PATHOLOGICAL AGEING
DE CARO, Maria;
2013-01-01
Abstract
Background. People affected by Alzheimer Dementia (AD) or Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) present with impairments in lexical/semantic processing. Picture naming could be seen as a lexical/semantic task which rests on the activation of perceptual, semantic, and phonological representations. The poor performance of MCI/AD individuals in picture naming has been accounted for in terms of deficits of either the perceptual, semantic, or phonological stages (e.g., Faust, Balota, & Multhaup, 2004) Aim. To disentangle the source of this deficit we compared the cumulative semantic interference effect (CSIE; Howard, Nickels, Coltheart, & Cole-Virtue, 2006) and the repetition priming effect (RPE) obtained with a sample of 20 healthy elderly to that obtained with a sample of 20 MCI/AD elderly. Method. The RPE refers to an increase in performance for repeated items compared to unrepeated items. The CSIE defines a linear increase in the naming RTs which is function of the already named pictures belonging to the same semantic category to which the named picture belongs. Results. CSIE was present in the healthy sample and absent in the MCI/AD sample. Instead, both groups showed comparable repetition priming effects. Conclusion. The impairment in picture naming exhibited by MCI/AD individuals is due to an inefficient semantic access. Ref. Faust, M. E., Balota, D. A., & Multhaup, K. S. (2004). Neuropsychology, 18, 526-536. Howard, D., Nickels, L., Coltheart, M., & Cole-Virtue, J. (2006). Cognition, 100, 464–482.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
