Journal Report

Journal Report

1. Potagas, C., Kasselimis, D., & Evdokimidis, I. (2011). Short-term and working memory impairments in aphasia. Neuropsychologia, 49(10), 2874-2878.

2a) The journal focuses on the relationship between aphasia and memory processing.

b) The research is conducted because there is lack of previous researches to establish a robust relationship between linguistic and memory deficits in aphasic patients.

c) The primary objective is to investigate short-term memory and working memory deficits in aphasics in relation to the severity of their language impairment.

d) The target audience of the journal is scientists. It is significant to them because it establishes a foundation for further studies.

e) Fifty-eight aphasic patients participated in the study. Based on language assessment, an aphasic score was calculated for each patient. Memory was assessed in two modalities, verbal and spatial and mean scores for all memory tasks were calculated.

f. There is a common mechanism between aphasic and memory deficits, the memory deficits are modality-independent, and the primary deficit concerns short-term memory rather than working memory.

3a) The major strengths of the manuscript are including a wide range of memory and language tests, analysis in different perspectives and able to draw conclusion to establish a relationship between memory deficits and aphasia.

b) The major weaknesses of the manuscript are the sample size is not large enough, and the spatial and verbal memory scores do not correlate significantly with each other to establish a robust relationship between language and memory deficits.

4. The journal helps us to explore the new ideas that language deficits are correlated with spatial memory. It introduces to us the complex network of interaction between different brain components such as between the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere. Moreover, it helps us to understand the mechanism in controlling speaking movement.