Social groups have a representation of their own: Clues from neuropsychology

The most relevant evidence for the organization of the conceptual knowledge in the brain was first provided by the patterns of deficits in brain-damaged individuals affecting one or another semantic category. Patients with various etiologies showed a disproportionate impairment in producing and understanding names of either living (fruits, vegetables, animals) or nonliving things (tools, vehicles, clothes). These double dissociations between spared and impaired recognition of living and nonliving things led to suggest that these categories are discretely represented in the brain. Recently social groups were found to be represented independently of traditional living and nonliving categories. Here we tested 21 patients with different types of primary dementia with three word sorting tasks tapping their conceptual knowledge about living and nonliving entities and social groups. Patients double dissociated in categorizing words belonging to the three categories. These findings clarify that knowledge about social groups is distinct from other semantic categories.