Verb acquisition and representation in Alzheimer's disease

Abstract

We examined the implicit acquisition and mental representation of a novel verb in patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD). Patients were exposed to the new verb in a naturalistic manner as part of a simple picture story. We probed grammatical, semantic and thematic matrix knowledge of the verb soon after presentation and again 1 week later. We found partial verb acquisition that was retained over 1 week. AD patients did not differ from controls in their acquisition and retention of a new verb's major grammatical subcategory, although they acquired little of its semantic properties and displayed minimal acquisition of the new word's thematic matrix. Moreover, AD patients appeared to maintain their acquired grammatical knowledge over 1 week. We discuss the implications of these findings from several perspectives, including the modularity of the language processing system, the relationship between episodic memory and semantic memory, and the role of the preserved implicit memory system in AD patients' partially successful lexical acquisition.

FIGURE 1

PERCENT OF IDEAL PERFORMANCE PROFILES FOR EACH ASPECT OF THE NEW VERB IN HEALTHY SENIORS AND ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE PATIENTS

FIGURE 2

MEAN GROUP PERFORMANCE OF HEALTHY SENIORS AND ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE PATIENTS ON EACH TASK