language and the brain

This old woman suffering from dementia was having trouble remembering words for actions (verbs). She didn't seem to have trouble remembering names for items or locations (nouns). Scientists were a little stumped so they did tests and sure enough this old lady seemed clearly to have trouble with verbs but not nouns. This looked like a new form of aphasia... pretty crazy stuff.

Then these other researchers did another test, using a different methodology, with the woman. they showed her a video of an action (instead of a picture of an action, like the other researchers were doing) and she was able to remember the names for the verbs she saw performed.

So it turns out, this woman can only remember verbs when she actually sees them performed, but she cannot if she sees them drawn as in a comic book.

Yet another reason why it's absolutely ridiculous that there are linguists still out there who are doing linguistics while ignoring all other aspects of cognition...