Projection of Meaning in Fronto-Temporal Dementia

Abstract

The phenomenon of confabulation has achieved little linguistic attention although it concerns aberrant utterances. Most studies have been carried out from a neuropsychiatric point of view. The aim of this study was to examine confabulate constructions with focus on the impact of time course and context on projections of meaning. Confabulate speech produced by individuals with fronto-temporal dementia (FTD) was investigated. A questionnaire was used to elicit confabulations in two individuals with severe FTD. Correct answers were uttered promptly, but were often followed by confabulate speech in a further development of the answer. Faulty answers often consisted of uncharacteristic general information that gradually developed into confabulations. A discrimination between two kinds of confabulate speech was made. In Primary dysdeictic confabulation, a lack of deictic centre was the dominating linguistic feature with major consequences on the maintenance of activated speech situations. Secondary confabulation consisted of problems with semantic selection causing faulty answers. The two categories of confabulation had in common that the semantic elements consisting mainly of projections from mental resource domains that are semantic and episodic memories. Both kinds of confabulations are likely to be caused by attentional problems. The attentional disturbance was obvious in regulation of semantic selection, which was demonstrated as projections of linguistic elements from identity preserving resource domains. The confabulate speech was mainly connected to mental representations of the individuals' identity and consisted of preserved episodic and semantic memories. Confabulate speech appears to serve the purpose of keeping up a strong image of the self.