Mentor
Daniel Tranel, Neurology
Participation year
2014
Project title

Naming and knowing: neural systems for retrieving knowledge for unique persons, places, and melodies

Abstract

Objective: When presented with the name of Marilyn Monroe, what neural systems are involved in the retrieval of conceptual information about her? The aim of this study is to test retrieval of conceptual information from name presentation. The investigation of conceptual knowledge retrieval of a specific entity given a name has not been explored. It is hypothesized that individuals with LTP damage will have impaired retrieval of conceptual knowledge given the name of a unique entity. Method: A famous faces task, a famous landmarks task, and a famous melodies task was administered to normal comparison patients (N=5) and a patient with LTP damage. Each participant was presented with a name of a unique entity. Participants were then asked to rate their familiarity with the corresponding entity and rate how well they could visualize the entity, or how well they could hear the corresponding tune (famous melodies). Participants were then asked to give a detailed description of the corresponding entity (singing and humming for famous melodies). Finally, participants were to choose a picture from four choices that matched the name, (pick the tune that matched the name for famous melodies). Results: Normal comparison participants and the LTP patient were not impaired when giving verbal descriptions (M=90.1, M=96). In previous standard naming tasks, the LTP patient had impaired naming for melodies (M=40) and landmarks (M=70), but not faces (M=78) in comparison to the normal comparison group (M=83.4, M=88, M=85). Conclusion: It is necessary to test more LTP patients and normal comparison participants to get a better understanding of concept retrieval. Although the preliminary stages of the study suggest that LTP patients may not be impaired at concept retrieval, one patient isn’t an accurate account for such a conclusion.

Sepopo Ekouevi
Education
Virginia Commonwealth