Anomia for musical entities.
Amy M Belfi, Anna Kasdan, Daniel Tranel
PMID 31031508WHAT IT FOUND
People with damage to the left temporal pole struggled to name familiar melodies and instruments, even when they recognised melodies.
The problem was not limited to music; it resembled a general naming deficit.
Key findings
01Patients with left temporal pole damage named famous melodies worse than brain-damaged comparison patients and normal comparisons, while recognition was not impaired.
02The naming problem was not limited to melodies: patients with left temporal pole damage also named musical instruments worse than comparison patients, and both groups named instruments better than melodies.
03Formal musical training and emotional responsiveness to music were not strongly related to naming melodies or instruments.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The melody study included only 10 patients with left temporal pole damage, 10 brain-damaged comparison patients, and 10 normal comparisons, so it cannot show how common this problem is in clinical settings. The paper does not test a treatment, so it cannot tell a therapist whether naming therapy for melodies or instruments helps. Patients had different lesion causes and lesion locations, and the groups were not randomly assigned, so the association with left temporal pole damage may not isolate one structure. The direct melody versus face and melody versus instrument comparisons used small subsets: 5 comparison patients and 7 left temporal pole patients did melody and faces, and 14 patients did melody and instruments. Musical experience data were available for only 10 of 20 brain-damaged participants in the melody analysis and 48 patients in the instrument analysis, so the lack of relationship with musical training is uncertain. The paper did not test music perception in all patients, so impaired naming could be influenced by perception in some cases.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that music naming is a separate disorder that needs music-specific therapy. The paper found that left temporal pole damage impaired naming for melodies, faces, and instruments, and recognition could remain intact, so the deficit appears to be part of a broader naming problem.