School of Psychology Research Groups:

Visual and semantic processing in dementia

Researchers

Professor Keith Laws
Dr John Done
Dr Bruce Hajilou

Visiting Researchers
Dr Tim Gale (Hertfordshire Partnerships Mental Health Trust, QEII Hospital)

PhD and MSc students
Rebecca Adlington (PhD)
Karen Irvine (MSc)
Sunil Sthanakiya (MSc)

Collaborators
Professor Giuseppe Satori (University of Padua, Italy)
Professor John Crawford (University of Aberdeen)
Dr Javier Moreno-Martínez (Departamento de Psicología Básica I, U.N.E.D. Madrid, Spain)
Dr Verity Leeson (Imperial College)

image of an older male

Area of research:

Visual object processing / naming in dementia including category-specific performance. This area of research deals with the locus of naming impairment in dementia, and factors influencing visual recognition of objects. It seeks to contribute to knowledge concerning models of semantic and perceptual knowledge organization.

Publications:

Hajilou, B.B., & Done, D.J. (2006) Evidence for a dissociation of structural and semantic knowledge in dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT). Neuropsychologia, Volume 45, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 810-816

Done, D.J., & Hajilou, B.B. (2005). Loss of high-level perceptual knowledge of object structure in DAT. Neuropsychologia, Volume 43, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 60-68

Laws KR, Adlington R., Gale TM, Moreno-Martínez, F.J & Sartori G (in press 2007). A meta-analytic review of category naming in Alzheimer's disease. Neuropsychologia

Moreno-Martínez, F.J., & Laws, K.R (in press 2007) An attenuation of the 'normal' category effect in patients with Alzheimer's disease? A review and bootstrap analysis. Brain and Cognition

Laws, K.R., Crawford, J.R., Gnoato, F., & Sartori G, (in press 2007) A predominance of category deficits for living things in Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy Body dementia. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society

Laws KR. (2005). Illusions of Normality: A Methodological Critique of Category-Specific Naming. Cortex, 41, 842-851 [Lead article with peer commentaries]

Laws KR, and Sartori G. (2005). Category deficits and paradoxical dissociations in Alzheimer's disease and Herpes Simplex Encephalitis. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 17, 1453-1459

Research Leader