Cognitive processing of tokens and their description in aphasia.

In a dual-reaction time task aphasics (N = 21) and right-hemisphere (RH) controls (N = 24) had to decide whether a list of features given verbally or pictorially correctly described the picture of a token. Although the error rates were extremely low, aphasics made significantly more errors than RH controls. There were no significant differences between the groups in latencies when pictures of tokens were presented; the groups differed drastically, however, when confronted with lists of features. The findings are interpreted as indicating a general deficit in the short-term storage of highly specific information.