Differential deficits of nouns and verbs in a generative naming task for individuals with mild cognitive impairment

Abstract

Objectives: Individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) have demonstrated word retrieval difficulties. The current study investigated differential deficits in the word retrieval process as a type of the word class (nouns vs. verbs) using generative naming tasks between the MCI and their control groups. Methods: Fifteen individual with MCI and 15 normal controls participated in this study. We administered generative naming tasks of nouns and verbs in both groups. The noun generative naming task consisted of two categories (animate vs. inanimate). Performance on the verb generative naming task was analyzed by the types of verbs. Results: The MCI group produced fewer numbers of nouns and verbs on the generation tasks than their controls. Both groups presented significantly lower performance on verbs than nouns. There was no significant difference depending on the animacy in the noun generative naming task. In contrast, there were significant differences in the subtype analyses of verb between the groups, indicating that individuals with MCI demonstrated significantly lower performance on transitive verbs than their controls, but there was no group difference in intransitive and do-verbs. Conclusion: The verb generative naming task may serve as a sensitive tool to differentiate the MCI group from normal aging populations. Furthermore, the more finite analyses of verbs' subtypes can additionally contribute to identifying differential deficits of word retrieval process for individuals with MCI. © 2020 Korean Academy of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology.