Disruption of retrieval and/or checking-off processes of lexical-phonological representation in confrontation naming by an anomic patient

Abstract

We report on a patient with anomic aphasia presenting severe and sometimes unusual word-finding difficulties in noun confrontation naming (i.e. production of Self-Denied Good Responses restricted to the naming to objects). With reference to Warren and Morton's model, which includes picture naming processing (1982), anomic deficits could be the surface manifestations of deficits in (1) the visual identification processing, or (2) the lexical semantic processing, or (3) the lexical phonological processing. However, a neuropsychological assessment indicates that gnosic, semantic and phonological processings seem unimpaired in our patient. Thus, the underlying determinism of his word-finding difficulties could consist in a deficit (1) in the selection and the activation of adequate lexical phonological form and/or (2) in the retroactive control processes in charge of assessing the appropriateness of selected and produced lexical forms. This deficit would exist only in confrontation naming for the lexical forms with concrete reference.