AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL EXPERIENCE AND WORD MEANING

The role of current personal experience in understanding of word meani ng was investigated in a patient, WM, who suffers from semantic dement ia. The study was prompted by the observation that WM, despite being s everely impaired on formal tests of word comprehension and naming, ret ained a range of vocabulary pertaining to her daily life. If autobiogr aphical experience has a general facilitatory effect, then this should affect which concepts are retained and which lost, but not influence the quality of that conceptual knowledge. Conversely, if personal auto biography has a direct role in investing concepts with meaning, then W M's understanding of nominal terms that she uses spontaneously in conv ersation ought not to be normal, but should be constrained by the auto biographical context in which she uses those terms. WM could define no uns and noun phrases drawn from her conversational vocabulary, but her definitions had a markedly autobiographical quality. Moreover, WM was extremely impaired in her ability to define new noun phrases, constru cted by combining words from her conversational vocabulary (e.g. ''dog licence'', constructed from ''driving licence'' and ''dog''; ''oil fi eld'' constructed from ''oil'' and ''field''). It was concluded that W M does not have normal conceptual understanding of nouns and noun phra ses that she uses appropriately in conversation. Her understanding is narrow and autobiographically constrained. The findings, which suggest an interactive relationship between autobiographical and semantic mem ory, have implications for understanding of the progressive breakdown of semantic knowledge.