Impaired Naming of Unique Landmarks Is Associated With Left Temporal Polar Damage

• Published in: Neuropsychology 2006-01, Vol.20 (1), p.1-10
• Main Author: Tranel, Daniel
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Aged; Anomia - physiopathology; Aphasia; Attention - physiology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain Damage; Brain Damage, Chronic - diagnosis; Brain Damage, Chronic - physiopathology; Disorders of higher nervous function. Focal brain diseases. Central vestibular syndrome and deafness. Brain stem syndromes; Dominance, Cerebral - physiology; Face; Famous Persons; Female; Human; Humans; Image Enhancement; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; Imaging, Three-Dimensional; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Medical sciences; Mental Recall - physiology; Middle Aged; Names; Naming; Nervous system (semeiology, syndromes); Neurology; Neuropsychological Tests; Organic mental disorders. Neuropsychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Retention (Psychology) - physiology; Semantics; Temporal Lobe; Temporal Lobe - physiopathology; Verbal Learning - physiology
• ISSN: 0894-4105; 1931-1559
• DOI: 10.1037/0894-4105.20.1.1

Previous studies have shown that the left temporal polar (TP) region is important for the retrieval of proper names for persons. It has been proposed that the key specialization of left TP is for proper nouns (rather than names for persons, per se), which predicts that left TP should support other categories whose members are denoted by proper names (e.g., landmarks). A lesion study tested the hypothesis that impaired naming of famous unique landmarks would be associated with damage to left TP. A Landmark Recognition and Naming Test was administered to participants with lesions to left TP, right TP, or regions outside TP. The results provided strong support for the hypothesis: Landmark naming was significantly inferior in the left group, supporting the hypothesis. The findings converge with previous lesion and functional imaging data to support the idea that the left TP region is important for the retrieval of names for unique entities. This fits the proposal that left TP contains convergence regions that operate as intermediaries between conceptual knowledge retrieval and lexical retrieval for classes of unique stimuli ( H. Damasio, D. Tranel, T. J. Grabowski, R. Adolphs, & A. R. Damasio, 2004 ).