Title: Mental Representation of Verbs
Speaker: Yasmeen Faroqi Shah, UMD HESP
Date: December 4, 2013; 12-1 PM
Room: LeFrak Hall Room 2208
Abstract:
Persons with aphasia (PWA) frequently experience difficulties in retrieving verbs. Relatively little is known about mechanisms underlying verb retrieval (compared to noun retrieval), both in PWA and in neurologically healthy adults. The talk will describe findings of research that investigated the following questions pertaining to verbs: 1) which properties of a verb influence naming efficiency, particularly, somatotopy (bodypart used for the action) 2) can we facilitate verb naming in neurologically healthy adults and PWA, 3) how do bilingual and monolingual speakers differ in verb versus noun naming, and 4) is there evidence of distinct neural representations for verbs relative to nouns. The findings elucidate the dynamics of verb retrieval and its impairment in aphasia.
