<p> Category-specific semantic deficits (CSSD) result in the inability to recognize, recall, and/or remember objects from a particular semantic category. There is a common pattern of impairments observed in CSSD patients that is reviewed in Section One. In Section Two, I used a tempo-matching speeded word verification task to investigate the early stages of semantic memory to examine the similarities between healthy participants under time pressure and the patient data. Specifically, I sought to produce in the latter the reversal of the basic level effect found in CSSD, and to examine healthy participant data for other CSSD trends. The speeded methodology generally failed to replicate the reversal of the basic level effect, except for several specific items at the shortest response deadline. The final study in Section Two examines the effect of semantic relatedness on this task. Three types of semantic relatedness each reduced the speed and accuracy of responses relative to unrelated conditions. Section Three provides an overview and discussion of the results. The failure to replicate the reversal of the basic level effect suggests that speeded classification of neuropsychologically relevant stimuli does not share a common etiology with CSSD.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:10003760 |
| Date | 03 February 2016 |
| Creators | Kline, Valerie |
| Publisher | University of Louisiana at Lafayette |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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