Faroqi-Shah_Verb_Naming_in_Aphasia
Persons with aphasia (PWA) frequently experience difficulties in retrieving verbs. Little is known about mechanisms underlying verb retrieval, both in neurologically healthy adults and PWA. The present study investigated two questions pertaining to action verb naming: 1) if any properties of a verb influence naming efficiency, particularly, somatotopy (bodypart used for the action), and 2) if somatotopic and phonemic primes facilitate action verb naming. Neurologically healthy adults and eight PWA named action videos performed by hand, leg or face under three conditions: neutral, phonemic or somatotopic (same body part) prime. Both groups named hand verbs the fastest and leg verbs the slowest. Somatotopic primes speeded naming for healthy adults, while phonemic facilitation was found for both groups. A multiple regression analysis identified verb frequency, name agreement and somatotopic association rating as significant predictors of verb naming in healthy participants. The findings elucidate the dynamics of verb retrieval and its impairment in aphasia.