ABSTRACT

Executive control is recruited for language processing, particularly in complex linguistic tasks. Although the issue of the existence of an executive control specific to language is still an open issue, there is much evidence that executively-demanding language tasks rely on domain-general rather than language-specific executive resources. Here, we addressed this issue by assessing verbal and non-verbal executive capacities in LG, an aphasic patient after a stroke. First, we showed that LG’s performance was spared in all non-verbal tasks regardless of the executive demands. Second, by contrasting conditions of high and low executive demand in verbal tasks, we showed that LG was only impaired in verbal task with high executive demand. The performance dissociation between low and high executive demand conditions in the verbal domain, not observed in the non-verbal domain, shows that verbal executive control partly dissociates from non-verbal executive control. This language-specific executive disorder suggests that some executive processes might be language-specific.

摘要

执行控制用于语言处理，特别是在复杂的语言任务中。尽管存在特定于语言的执行控制的问题仍然是一个悬而未决的问题，但有很多证据表明，执行要求高的语言任务依赖于领域通用而不是特定于语言的执行资源。在这里，我们通过评估中风后失语症患者 LG 的语言和非语言执行能力来解决这个问题。首先，我们表明 LG 在所有非语言任务中的表现都没有受到行政要求的影响。其次，通过对比语言任务中执行需求高低的条件，我们表明 LG 仅在执行需求高的语言任务中受损。语言领域中低执行需求和高执行需求条件之间的绩效分离，在非语言领域未观察到，表明语言执行控制与非语言执行控制部分分离。这种特定于语言的执行障碍表明某些执行过程可能是特定于语言的。