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What is normal when we are impaired: cognitive effects in processing space
This paper is part of a broader interdisciplinary linguistic and neuropsychological study of space in aphasic individuals with different types of aphasia. It is aimed at experimental testing of the so-called ‘space factor’ (Luria 1969). One of the series of experiments included in this research program is presented in this paper.
Our data support Luria’s thesis about specific disorder in interpretation of space in reversible (not supported pragmatically) constructions by patients with semantic aphasia and refute the thesis by Goodglass (1993) that reversible constructions are non-specifically impaired in all aphasia types. Importantly, the current experiment provided strong support for the normal pattern of processing reversible and irreversible prepositional constructions in motor and sensor/acoustic-mnestic aphasia, the general decay of their linguistic processing being taken into account.