Patients with early-onset chronic temporal lobe epilepsy demonstrate impairments in semantic knowledge regardless of whether the seizure focus is left- or right-lateralized (Bell et al., 2001).
To test if the observed difference in sensitivity to devaluation following extended training was the result of impairments in contingency knowledge in the OCD group, we tested subjects' awareness of explicit associative contingencies.
Individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show significant impairments in social knowledge, difficulties in pragmatic communication, and social deficits in behavior and activities [Fine, Bartolucci, Ginsberg, & Szatmari, 1991 ], overshadowing language delay in syntactic or structural linguistic knowledge [Baron-Cohen, 2005; Geurts & Embrechts, 2008 ].
The impairment of verbal comprehension has been related to WM loss, rather than to impairment of linguistic knowledge, in dementia [ 19].
These patients demonstrate that it is possible for brain damage to generate a highly selective yet general impairment of conceptual knowledge [ 1, 2, 22, 23].
Lexical decision was also intact, indicating impairment in semantic knowledge of vocabulary rather than absence of lexical representations.
The degree of semantic knowledge impairment can be dependent on word class.
After the first formal distinction made by Tulving in 1972 between episodic and semantic memory, the first selective impairment of semantic knowledge was reported by Warrington in 1975.
In the acute care setting, with 15 – 50% of patients having a degree of cognitive impairment [ 13], knowledge of dementia among those involved in their care, including medical practitioners, allied health staff, social workers, clerical staff and nurses, is essential.
By and large evidence above suggests that common factors may indeed influence and predict psychopathology and functional impairment and this knowledge should be used in mental health promotion and illness prevention.
