Comprehension of famous personal and geographical names in global aphasic subjects.

This experiment compared comprehension of famous personal and geographical names with that of common nouns in three groups of severe aphasic subjects across three modalities. Results revealed that the global aphasic group comprehended famous personal names significantly better than they did common nouns and were better in the reading comprehension modality. Comprehension of famous geographical names in the global aphasic group, however, was as impaired as that of common nouns. CT images suggested that the left occipital lobe and the left posterior inferior temporal gyrus, as well as the right hemisphere, may have relevance to the comprehension of written famous personal names.