1/4. Hemispheric dominance for emotions, empathy and social behaviour: evidence from right and left handers with frontotemporal dementia.Although evidence from primates suggests an important role for the anterior temporal cortex in social behaviour, human research has to date concentrated almost solely on the orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala. By describing four cases of the temporal variant of frontotemporal dementia we show how this degenerative condition provides an excellent model for investigating the role of the anterior temporal lobe, especially the right, in emotions, empathy and social behaviour. Assessments of semantic memory, processing of emotional facial expression and emotional prosody were made, empathy was measured, and facial expressions of emotion were coded. Of the two right handers described, one subject with predominantly left temporal lobe atrophy had severe semantic impairment but normal performance on all emotional tasks. In contrast, the subject with right temporal lobe atrophy showed severely impaired recognition of emotion from faces and voices that was not due to semantic or perceptual difficulties. empathy was lost, interpersonal skills were severely affected and facial expression of emotion was characterized by a fixed expression that was unresponsive to situations. Additionally, two left handers with right temporal lobe atrophy are described. One demonstrated the same pattern of hemispheric lateralization as the right handers and had emotional impairment. The other left hander showed the opposite pattern of deficits, suggesting a novel presentation of anomalous dominance with reversed hemispheric specialization of semantic memory and emotional processing.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = behaviour (Clic here for more details about this article) |
2/4. Behavioural and physiological evidence for covert face recognition in a prosopagnosic patient.In a previous report, Bauer (1984) described the patient LF, who was unable to recognise familiar faces. Despite the inability to verbally identify familiar faces, psychophysiological examination revealed preserved covert processing of facial identity. Subsequent studies have demonstrated covert face recognition using behavioural tasks. Investigations of the patient PH showed normal face familiarity effects on matching, interference, priming, and learning tasks, while overt recognition was completely absent (De Haan, Young and Newcombe, 1987b). The use of different methodologies has led to different theoretical conceptualisation of the "covert recognition" phenomenon. Until now, no individual patient has been exposed to both methodologies. In this study we evaluated LF, who shows psychophysiological evidence of covert recognition, using behavioural tasks previously used with PH. The results reveal clear behavioural evidence of preserved face recognition without awareness. These findings suggest that both methodologies tap similar phenomena, and have important implications for theoretical models of covert face recognition. A conceptual model designed to integrate psychophysiological and behavioural evidence of covert face recognition is proposed.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 0.66666666666667keywords = behaviour (Clic here for more details about this article) |
3/4. The grammatical properties of mass nouns: an aphasia case study.A patient (F.A.) is described who, as a consequence of brain damage, shows an isolated deficit concerning the use, across a series of tasks, of the grammatical properties of mass/non-countable nouns. Her use of grammar is otherwise perfect. This behaviour dissociates from that of other patients who have severe grammatical difficulties, but do not show any impairment in the mass nouns tasks that F.A. fails. This case is thought to demonstrate how specific grammatical rules, that are said to be stored at the lemma level of lexical retrieval, are indeed independently represented and accessible.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 0.16666666666667keywords = behaviour (Clic here for more details about this article) |
4/4. Sniffing behaviour, or recognizing a lily by smell, but not recognizing a sock on sight.We report a 65-year-old man with a post-anoxic encephalopathy who showed compulsive sniffing at available objects. This stereotyped environment-driven behaviour has not been previously described. Other compulsive environment-driven responses, such as manipulation and utilization of tools and hyperlexia, were also present. The disorder shared several features with the kluver-bucy syndrome where mouthing of objects, rather than smelling them, is common. The patient had a severe dementia, with amnesia, anomia, apraxia, and visual agnosia. Whereas he could not recognize very familiar objects on sight, he could in contrast correctly identify several familiar odours. Although sniffing was a compulsive and purposeless environment-driven behaviour, the question may be asked whether a relatively preserved olfactory recognition, in the presence of a severe disorder of visual recognition and knowledge, could have favoured a stereotyped exploration of objects by smelling.- - - - - - - - - - ranking = 1keywords = behaviour (Clic here for more details about this article) |