Showing papers by "Kenneth M. Heilman published in 1975"

Auditory affective agnosia. Disturbed comprehension of affective speech.

Abstract: Hughlings Jackson noted that, although some aphasic patients were unable to use propositional speech, affective speech appeared to be spared. The purpose of this experiment was to study patients with unilateral hemispheric disease in order to ascertain if there are hemispheric asymmetries in the comprehension of affective speech. Six subjects had right temporoparietal lesions (left unilateral neglect) and six subjects had left temporoparietal lesions (fluent aphasias). These subjects were presented with 32 tape recorded sentences. In 16 trials the patients were asked to judge the emotional mood of the speaker (happy, sad, angry, indifferent) and in 16 trials the patients were asked to judge the content. Line drawings containing facial expressions of the four emotions or line drawings corresponding with the four basic contents were displayed with each sentence and the patient responded by pointing. All 12 subjects made perfect scores on the content portion of the test. On the emotional portion the right hemispheric patients scored a mean of 4-17 and the left hemispheric group scored a mean 10-17. The difference between these means is significantly (P less than 0-01) and suggests that patients with right hemispheric dysfunction and neglect have a defect in the comprehension of affective speech.

Defective motor learning in ideomotor apraxia

Abstract: Liepmann suggested that the left hemisphere contained the engrams for motor sequences. Other investigators have suggested that ideomotor apraxia may be caused by either a destruction of these engrams or a disconnection of these engrams from motor systems in the nondominant hemisphere. If these hypotheses are correct, then ideomotor apraxics should not only show a defect on previously learned motor tasks but also a defect in new motor learning. Nine right-handed, hemiparetic, aphasic apraxics were given six trials on a rotary pursuit meter. Eight right-handed hemiparetic, aphasic, nonaprixic patients served as controls. All subjects were instructed to use their left (nonparetic) hand. The performance of the control group on the sixth trial was significantly better than that on the first trial, showing a distinct learning effect. In the apraxic group, however, there was no significant difference between the first and sixth trial, suggesting a defect in motor learning. This defect appeared to be caused by a combined defect of both acquisition and retention.

Immediate recall of sentences plus digits: a new approach.

Abstract: Subjects were asked to recall sentences followed by random strings of digits. Presentation was auditory, recall was spoken and the format followed the Wechsler digit retention sub-test. Consideration of the number of digits correctly recalled following correct recall of the sentence indicated that (a) simple active affirmative declarative sentences reduced the average digits recalled by 2, (b) passivization did not significantly increase this reduction while (c) adding clauses did. Consideration of the serial position of digit recall errors indicated that the sentences and digits were disjoint in memory. Analysis of errors in sentence recall suggested that detransforming occurs in immediate recall tasks and that reversibility was a factor in correct recall.