Number words are special: Evidence from a case of primary progressive aphasia

Deafness for the meanings of number words

“…This allows us to exclude category size as a cause of MMV's selective deficit with numbers. These results are similar to those obtained by other individuals (Thioux et al, 1998;Domahs et al, 2006). Finally, we might consider whether it is number words per se that are affected or any words that refer to quantity-words such as many, few, enough, etc.…”

“…In combination, these results are taken as evidence of post-lexical categorical organization of the representation of the written forms of letters and numbers -categoryspecificity at the periphery of the language processing system. It should also be noted that cases describing selective sparing of number words at multiple levels of representation have also been reported (e.g., see Anderson et al, 1990;Domahs, Bartha, Lochy, Benke &Delazer, 2006 andStarrfelt, 2006). …”

Words and number words transcoding: A retrospective study on 57 aphasic subjects

“…Marangolo, Nasti, and Zorzi (2004) assumed that their patient, ZA, with impaired oral production of number words and relatively spared production of words had difficulty in accessing number words in the phonological output lexicon. Domahs, Bartha, Lochy, Benke, and Delazer (2006) described a case of primary progressive aphasia with spared semantic knowledge for numerals and concepts related to nouns and massive impairment in comprehension and naming of words but not of number words. This pattern of results was taken as evidence of damage to an amodal lexical layer between the semantic system and the four modality-specific word stores, with a selective preservation of numerals.…”

Are Number Words Fundamentally Different? A Qualitative Analysis of Aphasic Errors in Word and Number Word Production

“…Crucially, her semantic knowledge was argued to be largely unimpaired for both kinds of words. In the light of their own findings and cases reported in the literature, Domahs et al suggested that number words and other words may be differentially organised at the semantic level of processing and the lexico-semantic connections, both functionally and neuro-anatomically [14].…”

“…In addition they suggested different modality-specific output lexicons for the written and spoken production of numerals [13]. Highlighting the connections between semantic and lexical knowledge, Domahs et al reported on a patient with primary progressive aphasia (HT) [14]. This patient showed a pronounced dissociation between number words and other words in all four modalities (auditory and visual lexical decision, naming, reading aloud, writing to dictation).…”