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A comment on Aphasia robs people of their language skills while leaving their minds intact.

Re:Aphasia robs people of their language skills while leavin... by madaxe_again on Friday April 01, 2016 @05:22PM (#11408697)
Not just language - object recognition too - visual aphasia is a thing too.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sacks is a great book on the topic.

Anecdotally, I've had it (visual aphasia), in a severely dehydrated state (vomiting for a week in 40 degree heat is no joke), I couldn't identify objects (taps = cat) and things were hard to identify as coherent wholes, more a bunch of strange parts, and was hallucinating badly to boot. Couldn't even begin to put words together so can't comment on verbal. Horrible experience but even at the time some part of me that was clinging to sanity was going "hmm, interesting".

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Re:Aphasia robs people of their language skills while leavin... by thaumasiotes on Saturday April 02, 2016 @01:04AM (#11410305)
> (vomiting for a week in 40 degree heat is no joke)

Since you describe this as "heat", I'll note for the record that 40 centigrade is 104 Fahrenheit.

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Re:Aphasia robs people of their language skills while leavin... by yxlx on Saturday April 02, 2016 @03:31AM (#11410628)
>Horrible experience but even at the time some part of me that was clinging to sanity was going "hmm, interesting".

That must've been a strange feeling.

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Re:Aphasia robs people of their language skills while leavin... by madaxe_again on Sunday April 03, 2016 @06:54AM (#11415679)
It's a familiar one for me. I've shot myself, put an axe through my hand, been stabbed, and have had all manner of painful and unpleasant experiences - and I guess part of the coping mechanism I've had since before I recall is to take a clinical detachment and observe myself as a subject.

Then again when I was nine my mother caught me sticking knitting needles in my eye, trying to replicate newton's experiments, so.

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Re:Aphasia robs people of their language skills while leavin... by MrAnalogy on Saturday April 02, 2016 @05:18PM (#11413511)
Not to get all pedantic, but aphasia means difficulty with communication. So "visual aphasia" doesn't make any sense. Still an interesting deficit

Aphasia -Aphasia is an impairment of language, affecting the production or comprehension of speech and the ability to read or write. (from the National Aphasia Association)

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