Papers by Claudio Luzzatti
Assessment of verb and sentence processing deficits in stroke-induced aphasia: the Italian version of the Northwestern Assessment of Verbs and Sentences (NAVS-I)
Aphasiology, May 25, 2023
Predicting the reading profiles of different neurodegenerative impairments: The case of Alzheimer’s disease, Progressive Primary Aphasia and Posterior Cortical Atrophy
The role of semantic vs. motor processing information in knowledge of tool manipulation
Neuropsychologia, 1980
Almtract-A case of loss of mental imagery following a vascular lesion of the left occipital lobe ... more Almtract-A case of loss of mental imagery following a vascular lesion of the left occipital lobe is described and discussed. The findings support a twofold (analogue and propositional) theory of neural representations of the external world. It is argued that sanse-specifi¢ representations may he preserved in spite of the reported loss of imagery in the corresponding modality. The possibility that this disorder may reflect a functional disconnection between brain centres is discussed.
Agrammatism, syntactic theory, and the lexicon: Broca's area and the development of linguistic ability in the human brain
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Feb 1, 2000
Grodzinsky's Tree-Pruning Hypothesis can be extended to explain agrammat... more Grodzinsky's Tree-Pruning Hypothesis can be extended to explain agrammatic comprehension disorders. Although agrammatism is evidence for syntactic modularity, there is no evidence for its anatomical modularity or for its localization in the frontal lobe. Agrammatism results ...
Word and pseudoword superiority effects: A literature review and future perspectives
Giornale italiano di psicologia, 2015
Lettura di nomi composti in pazienti con dislessia da neglect
... Tali risultati sono in linea con quanto già evidenziato in ambito afasiologico13. ... Cogniti... more ... Tali risultati sono in linea con quanto già evidenziato in ambito afasiologico13. ... Cognitive Neuropsychology, 1985;2:253-64. 3. Friedmann N, Nachman-Katz I. Developmental neglect dyslexia in a Hebrew-reading child. Cortex, 2004;40:301-13. ...
Verb selection and argument structure complexity: A behavioral study on Italian participants
The Mental Parsing of Italian Nominal Compounds: Evidence from Deep Dyslexia
Tool use and concept representation in the brain: a study on three neurodegenerative patients
Although compound-word processing has long been studied in psycholinguistics and aphasiology, som... more Although compound-word processing has long been studied in psycholinguistics and aphasiology, some aspects of this process are still under debate; for example, there is contrasting evidence about the effect of semantic transparency (Libben, 1998). Moreover, most studies on compounds were performed in English and Dutch; as these languages admit only head-final compounds, the
Neuroanatomical correlates of selective impairments of nouns and verbs
CM's reading was slow and labored, with a clear length effect (she often had to write on the desk... more CM's reading was slow and labored, with a clear length effect (she often had to write on the desk with her finger to retrieve the letters). The pattern is consistent with an LBL reading impairment in both languages. English Accuracy. CM named 28% of the items correctly; imageability (55% vs 8%; Chi 2 =14.52; p<.001), but not lexicality effect (31% vs 17%; Chi 2 =1.95; p=.16, n.s.) were observed. Reading Time. With no time limit, CM named 89% of the items correctly. Performance was better on words than nonwords (93% and 79%), but the difference is barely significant (Chi 2 =3.47; p=.06). Consistent with the LBL reading behavior, the mean reading time was very long (8.0 secs). Italian Accuracy. CM named only 3% of the items within two seconds; this performance is significantly inferior to that obtained in English (Chi 2 =21.39; p<.001). Reading Time. With no time limit, a lexicality effect emerged (97% vs. 77%; Chi 2 =9.07; p<.01); no imageability, frequency or grammatical class effects were found. As in English, the mean reading time was very long (mean = 12.7 secs).
Brain and Language, Feb 1, 2006
Drai and Grodzinsky provide a valuable analysis that offers a way of disentangling the effects of... more Drai and Grodzinsky provide a valuable analysis that offers a way of disentangling the effects of Movement and Mood in agrammatic comprehension. However, their mathematical implementation (Beta model) hides theoretically relevant information, i.e., qualitative heterogeneities of performance within the patient sample. This heterogeneity is crucial in the variability debate.
The autocracy of meaning: Intact visuo-imitative processes may not compensate for meaningful gestures
Cortex, May 1, 2021
The dual-route models of action distinguish between a semantic and a non-semantic visuo-motor rou... more The dual-route models of action distinguish between a semantic and a non-semantic visuo-motor route to execute different types of gestures. Despite the large amount of evidence in support to the model, some aspects are debated. One issue concerns the recruitment of the visuo-motor route to correctly execute meaningful gestures when the semantic route is damaged. Debated predictions of the dual-route model were investigated in a sample of 32 patients with left hemisphere stroke lesions compared to 27 healthy controls. Group analysis showed that patients were equally impaired on meaningful and meaningless gestures. Single-case analysis demonstrated that most cases were more impaired on meaningful than on meaningless gestures both when they are given in separate lists and when they are intermingled. Impaired performance on the imitation of meaningful gestures in both the separate and mixed list but spared performance on meaningless gestures in the separate list is against the hypothesis that the intact visuo-motor route compensates for damage to the semantic route. These results suggest that the damaged semantic route interferes with the visuo-motor route and prevents the processing of meaningful gestures along the visuo-motor route. Furthermore, an explorative analysis was conducted to investigate the relationship between gestures imitation and pantomime of object use on verbal command and between gestures imitation and performance on linguistic tasks. Although no significant correlation emerged, patients with moderate/severe impairment on the AAT performed significantly worse on meaningful, but not on meaningless gestures than patients with mild/minimal language impairment, suggesting that praxis and language systems are independent but dynamically interact.
Delusion of inanimate doubles: Description of a case of focal retrograde amnesia
Neurocase, Dec 1, 2012
This paper reports the case of a patient, M.P., who developed delusion of inanimate doubles, with... more This paper reports the case of a patient, M.P., who developed delusion of inanimate doubles, without Capgras syndrome, after traumatic brain injury. His delusional symptoms were studied longitudinally and the cognitive impairments associated with delusion were investigated. Data suggest that M.P. did &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;perceive&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; the actual differences between doubles and originals rather than &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;confabulate&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; them. The cognitive profile, characterized by retrograde episodic amnesia, but neither object processing impairment nor confabulations, supports this hypothesis. The study examines the nature of object misidentification based on Ellis&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39; and Staton&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;s account and proposes a new account based on concurrent unbiased retrieval of semantic memory traces and biased recollection of episodic memory traces.
Understanding the mental lexicon through neglect dyslexia: a study on compound noun reading
Neurocase, Apr 1, 2013
The present study employs neglect dyslexia (ND) as an experimental model to study compound-word p... more The present study employs neglect dyslexia (ND) as an experimental model to study compound-word processing; in particular, it investigates whether compound constituents are hierarchically organized at mental level and addresses the possibility of whole-word representation. Seven Italian-speaking patients suffering from ND participated in a word naming task. Both left-headed (pescespada, swordfish) and right-headed (astronave, spaceship) Italian compound nouns were used as stimuli. Non-existent compounds, which were generated by substituting the leftmost constituent of a compound with an orthographically similar word (e.g., *pestespada, *plaguesword), were also employed. A significant headedness effect emerged in the group analysis: patients read left-headed compounds better than right-headed compounds. A significant lexicality effect was also found: the participants read real compounds better than their non-existent compound pairs. Moreover, logit mixed-effects analyses indicated a left-hand constituent frequency effect. Results are discussed in terms of hierarchical representation of compounds and direct access to compound lemma nodes.
The multiple-lemma representation of Italian compound nouns: A single case study of deep dyslexia
Neuropsychologia, Apr 1, 2012
It is not clear how compound words are represented within the influential framework of the lemma-... more It is not clear how compound words are represented within the influential framework of the lemma-lexeme theory. Theoretically, compounds could be structured through a multiple lemma architecture, in which the lemma nodes of both the compound and its constituents are involved in lexical processing. If this were the case, syntactic properties of both the compound and its constituents should play a role when performing tasks involving compound processing, e.g., compound-word reading. This issue is investigated in the present study through an assessment of the performance of a deep dyslexic patient (GR) in three compound-reading experiments. In the first experiment, verb-noun (VN) compound nouns (e.g., lavapiatti, &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;dishwasher&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;, lit. wash-dishes) were employed as stimuli, while in the second, VN compound stimuli were embedded in sentences, and were compared to paired verb phrases (e.g., lui lava piatti, &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;he washes dishes&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;). Position-specific effects were ruled out by means of a third experiment, which investigated the retrieval of noun-noun compounds (e.g., pescespada, &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;swordfish&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;, lit. fishsword). In experiment 1, GR made errors on the verb constituent more frequently than on the noun, an effect that did not emerge in Experiment 2: when embedded in sentences, VN compounds were read significantly better than verb-phrases and no grammatical-class effect emerged. In Experiment 3, the first and the second constituent were read with the same level of accuracy. The disproportionate impairment, which emerged in reading the verb component of nominal VN compounds, indicates that the grammatical properties of constituents are being retrieved, and thus confirms access to the constituent lemma-nodes. However, the results suggested a whole-word representation when compounds are embedded in sentences; since the sentence context affects the access to compounds through syntactic constraints, whole-word representation is arguably at the lemma level as well (multiple-lemma representation). Experiment 3 indicates that these effects cannot be accounted for by a position-specific impairment.
The Mental Lexicon, Dec 15, 2009
There is a significant body of psycholinguistic evidence that supports the hypothesis of an acces... more There is a significant body of psycholinguistic evidence that supports the hypothesis of an access to constituent representation during the mental processing of compound words. However it is not clear whether the internal hierarchy of the constituents (i.e., headedness) plays a role in their mental lexical processing and it is not possible to disentangle the effect of headedness from that of constituent position in languages that admit only head-final compounds, like English or Dutch. The present study addresses this issue in two constituent priming experiments (SOA 250ms) with a lexical decision task. Italian endocentric (head-initial and head-final) and exocentric nominal compounds were employed as stimuli and the position of the primed constituent was manipulated. A first-level priming effect was found, confirming the automatic access to constituent representation. Moreover, in head-final compounds data reveal a larger priming effect for the head than for the modifying constituent. These results suggest that different kinds of compounds have a different representation at mental level: while head-final compounds are represented with an internal head-modifier hierarchy, headinitial and exocentric compounds have a lexicalised, internally flat representation.
Multiple patterns of writing disorders in dementia of the Alzheimer type and their evolution
Neuropsychologia, 2003
This paper reports the results obtained from a writing task given to 23 Italian patients sufferin... more This paper reports the results obtained from a writing task given to 23 Italian patients suffering from mild to moderate dementia of the Alzheimer&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;s type (DAT). Spelling performance was tested with a task that taps the sub-word-level (spelling of regular words and nonwords), and the lexical route (spelling of regular and irregular words), in line with contemporary models of writing. Each patient&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;s performance was classified according to the emergence of dissociated patterns of damage between regular words and nonwords and between regular and irregular words. The 23 DAT patients span the whole spectrum of dysgraphic taxonomy; five showed the characteristic pattern of impairment of surface dysgraphia, two showed the characteristics of phonological dysgraphia, while a mixed pattern (i.e. better performance on regular words compared to irregular words and regular nonwords) emerged in seven cases. Three patients presented undifferentiated writing disorders, two were completely agraphic, while four patients showed only minimal or no writing defects. The rate of dissociated impairments in the lexical and the sub-word-level routine is very similar to that observed after acute focal brain damage, which contradicts the hypothesis that degenerative brain damage selectively impairs writing performance along the lexical-semantic route. To test the hypothesis that surface sub-word-level processing abilities are affected only during the evolution of the disease, nine patients were tested longitudinally after an interval of 6-12 months. Once again, the data showed high variability across subjects, and do not seem to support involvement of the sub-word-level spelling routine only at a late stage in the development of the disease.
Uploads
Papers by Claudio Luzzatti