Valeria Abusamra

From Semantic to Social Deficits: Dysfunction of the Nondominant Posterior Perisylvian Area in Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is characterized by profound deficits in social competence and functioning, independent from active psychotic symptoms at different stages of the disease. Social deficits in schizophrenia are clinically well characterized, but their neurobiological underpinnings are undetermined. This article reviews recent evidence supporting heritable deficits in a circuit necessary for appropriate naming of emotions and mental states in others, centered at the temporoparietal junction of the nondominant hemisphere. The clinical implications of this model are discussed, including the potential use of rehabilitation techniques oriented to recognition and naming of emotions and mental states as a necessary step for social rehabilitation.

The right hemisphere’s contribution to discourse processing: A study in temporal lobe epilepsy

Objective: Discourse skills ‐ in which the right hemisphere has an important role ‐ enables verbal communication by selecting contextually relevant information and integrating it coherently to infer the correct meaning. However, language research in epilepsy has focused on single word analysis related mainly to left hemisphere processing. The purpose of this study was to investigate discourse abilities in patients with right lateralized medial temporal lobe epilepsy (RTLE) by comparing their performance to that of patients with left temporal lobe epilepsy (LTLE). Methods: 74 pharmacoresistant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients were evaluated: 34 with RTLE and 40 with LTLE. Subjects underwent a battery of tests that measure comprehension and production of conversational and narrative discourse. Disease related variables and general neuropsychological data were evaluated. Results: The RTLE group presented deficits in interictal conversational and narrative discourse, with a disintegrated speech, lack of categorization and misinterpretation of social meaning. LTLE group, on the other hand, showed a tendency to lower performance in logical‐temporal sequencing. Significance: RTLE patients showed discourse deficits which have been described in right hemisphere damaged patients due to other etiologies. Medial and anterior temporal lobe structures appear to link semantic, world knowledge, and social cognition associated areas to construct a contextually related coherent meaning. HighlightsRight temporal lobe epilepsy patients showed frequent discourse deficits.A lack of categorization and inhibition of data was found in discourse production.Comprehension impairments were related with pragmatic and social inference.Right anterior temporal areas contribute to build a contextually related meaning.These areas would link semantic, world knowledge and social cognition processing.

Causalidad, iconicidad y continuidad: el efecto del conocimiento previo sobre el mundo en la comprensión de relaciones causales

This paper studies the involvement of world knowledge and its interaction with linguistic (semantic) knowledge in the understanding of causal relations. We will attempt to determine to what extent the iconicity principle and the continuity hypothesis – see especially Murray (1997) – apply in Spanish and whether they are subject to restrictions attributable to the type of information processed. We also discuss Sanders’ (2005) causality-by-default hypothesis and provide relevant evidence for assessing its correctness. To test our hypotheses, we investigate the comprehension of two-sentence texts of two types (in “everyday” and in “technical” language) under four conditions: normal and inverted order (cause–effect vs. effect–cause); with and without connective. We predict that our “type of information” variable, one of the core elements of this study, will condition causal relations processing and modify to some extent the classical claims of iconicity and continuity hypothesis. The results show that lack of prior knowledge, indeed, can affect the predictions and assumptions of the iconicity principle and the continuity hypothesis and that, if there is no prior knowledge, the introduction of linguistic clues (connectives) facilitates and even becomes indispensable for understanding.

Temporal connections: before and after in reading comprehension / Conexiones de orden temporal: el antes y el después en la comprensión lectora

Abstract Our objective was to examine the role of certain temporal connectors — as particles that are representative of the surface level — within Spanish, contrasting latencies of responses and the number of errors that are produced in the processing of sentences that differ only by the connector used (before/ after). Twenty subjects were assessed using a reaction-time test. Participants read sentences that contained two successive events and immediately afterwards chose which of two drawings explained the action that chronologically occurred first. Latencies of responses for sentences preceded by the connector after and those that included before between clauses proved to be shorter than those of their counterparts (an initial before and an inter-clause after).