Auditory modality specific anomia: evidence from a case of pure word deafness

In a patient with a classical syndrome of pure word deafness following a cerebrovascular accident, detailed neuropsychological examination showed an almost absolute inability to name meaningful non verbal sounds, in spite of normal recognition as demonstrated by ability to match the sound with the corresponding natural source. This selective anomia, confined to auditory modality, is discussed in view of the previous researches regarding the general field of naming disturbances, which showed that for the vast majority of aphasics, anomia was not modality dependent. In addition, the contrasting performance of the patient who showed complete lack of phonemic analysis matched with normal recognition of some acoustic parameters of speech as prosody and stress is discussed.