Abstract
Persons with aphasia who are trained to generate abstract words (e.g., justice) in a specific context-category (e.g., courthouse) have been shown to improve not only on the trained items, but also on concrete words (e.g., lawyer) in the same context-category (Kiran, Sandberg, & Abbott, 2009). However, the underlying neural mechanism of this generalization effect is unknown. Abstract and concrete words provide a unique opportunity to study specific neural activity related to direct training and generalization because they are thought to be processed differently by the brain (Binder, Desai, Graves, & Conant, 2009; Wang, Conder, Blitzer, & Shinkareva, 2010), but are linked in such a way as to promote generalization (Kiran et al., 2009). The current study examines the neural activation and functional connectivity patterns of abstract and concrete word processing in persons with aphasia before and after training abstract word retrieval to help uncover the neural mechanisms associated with direct training and generalization.
Highlights
IntroductionPersons with aphasia who are trained to generate abstract words (e.g., justice) in a specific context-category (e.g., courthouse) have been shown to improve on the trained items, and on concrete words (e.g., lawyer) in the same context-category (Kiran, Sandberg, & Abbott, 2009)
Persons with aphasia who are trained to generate abstract words in a specific context-category have been shown to improve on the trained items, and on concrete words in the same context-category (Kiran, Sandberg, & Abbott, 2009)
All patients are trained on abstract word retrieval in a specific context-category by analyzing semantic features for each word within that context
Summary
Persons with aphasia who are trained to generate abstract words (e.g., justice) in a specific context-category (e.g., courthouse) have been shown to improve on the trained items, and on concrete words (e.g., lawyer) in the same context-category (Kiran, Sandberg, & Abbott, 2009). The underlying neural mechanism of this generalization effect is unknown. Abstract and concrete words provide a unique opportunity to study specific neural activity related to direct training and generalization because they are thought to be processed differently by the brain (Binder, Desai, Graves, & Conant, 2009; Wang, Conder, Blitzer, & Shinkareva, 2010), but are linked in such a way as to promote generalization (Kiran et al, 2009). The current study examines the neural activation and functional connectivity patterns of abstract and concrete word processing in persons with aphasia before and after training abstract word retrieval to help uncover the neural mechanisms associated with direct training and generalization
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
