ABSTRACT
Patients with category-specific semantic deficits-a greater impairment for one domain or category of concepts than another-have played a key role in the development of theories of the organisation of conceptual knowledge in semantic memory. The most widely debated dissociation has been that between knowledge of living and non-living things, and this will be the focus of the current chapter. Numerous reports in the neuropsychological literature suggest that brain damage can disrupt knowledge of living things to a significantly greater extent than non-living things in some patients, whereas in other, albeit rarer, cases the reverse pattern is found (Barbarotto, Capitani, Spinnler, & Trivelli, 1995; Basso, Capitani, & Laiacona, 1988; Caramazza & Shelton, 1998; De Renzi & Lucchelli, 1994; Farah, Hammond, Mehta, & Ratcliff, 1989; Forde et al., 1997; Laiacona, Capitani, & Barbarotto, 1997; McCarthy & Warrington, 1988; Moss, Tyler, Durrant-Peatfield, & Bunn, 1998; Pietrini et al., 1988; Sacchett & Humphreys, 1992; Sartori & Job, 1988; Silveri & Gainotti, 1988; Warrington & McCarthy, 1987; Warrington & Shallice, 1984; for a review see Forde & Humphreys, 1999).
