Abstract
Recent studies have shown that action observation treatment without concomitant verbal cue has a positive impact on the recovery of verb retrieval deficits in aphasic patients. In agreement with an embodied cognition viewpoint, a hypothesis has been advanced that gestures and language form a single communication system and words whose retrieval is facilitated by gestures are semantically represented through sensory-motor features. However, it is still an open question as to what extent this treatment approach works. Results from the recovery of motor deficits have suggested that action observation promotes motor recovery only for actions that are part of the motor repertoire of the observer. The aim of the present experiment was to further investigate the role of action observation treatment in verb recovery. In particular, we contrasted the effects induced by observing human actions (e.g. dancing, kicking, pointing, eating) versus non human actions (e.g. barking, printing). Seven chronic aphasic patients with a selective deficit in verb retrieval underwent an intensive rehabilitation training that included five daily sessions over two consecutive weeks. Each subject was asked to carefully observe 115 video-clips of actions, one at a time and, after observing them, they had to produce the corresponding verb. Two groups of actions were randomly presented: humans versus nonhuman actions. In all patients, significant improvement in verb retrieval was found only by observing video-clips of human actions. Moreover, follow-up testing revealed long-term verb recovery that was still present two months after the two treatments had ended. In support of the multimodal concept representation's proposal, we suggest that just the observation of actions pertaining to the human motor repertoire is an effective rehabilitation approach for verb recovery.
Highlights
It is well known that in aphasic patients word-finding difficulties are the most pervasive symptom of language breakdown
The Scheffepost-hoc test revealed that, while the mean percentage of correct responses for non human actions at the end of training did not significantly differ from baseline performance (mean = 33%, SEM = 6 (T10), vs. mean = 29%, SEM = 6 (T1), p = .23), a significant improvement was observed between the end of treatment and baseline performance for human actions (mean = 69%, SEM = 8 (T10) vs. mean = 36%, SEM = 8 (T1), p = .000)
While no significant differences emerged in the mean percentage of correct responses between human and non human actions at baseline (mean = 33%, SEM = 6 vs. mean = 29, SEM = 6, p = .6), the mean percentage of response accuracy was greater for human actions than for non human actions at the end of training (mean = 69 %, SEM = 8 vs. mean = 36%, SEM = 8, p = .000)
Summary
It is well known that in aphasic patients word-finding difficulties are the most pervasive symptom of language breakdown. Different rehabilitation therapies based either on the simple use of gesture [1,2,3] or on gestures paired with verbal production [4,5,6,7,8] have been proposed. In a work by Hanlon et al [1], the effect of different unilateral gestural movements on naming to confrontation were examined. Raimer et al [6] examined the effect of gestural treatments using pantomimes paired with verbal training for noun and verb retrieval in a group of aphasic patients. Results showed a specific improvement in naming trained nouns and verbs but not in untrained words
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