Hippocampal contributions to language: evidence of referential processing deficits in amnesia.

ABSTRACT: A growing body of work suggests the hippocampus contributes to a variety of cognitive domains beyond its traditional role in memory. We propose that the hippocampus, in its capacity for relational binding, representational flexibility, and online maintenance and integration of multimodal relational representations, is a key contributor to language processing. Here we test the hypothesis that the online interpretation of pronouns is hippocampus-dependent. We combined eye tracking with neuropsychological methods, where participants (4 patients with bilateral hippocampal damage and severe declarative memory impairment, 4 patients with ventromedial prefrontal cortex [vmPFC] damage, and healthy comparison participants) viewed a scene while listening to short dialogues introducing 2 characters;

SUBMITTER: Kurczek J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3974972 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature