Résumé
Aphasia is defined as an acquired language disorder secondary to a brain injury. It causes language disorders, including anomia. Inner language is defined as the ability to generate language silently, "in one's head", and to objectively measure the auditory and articulatory structure of this language. Finally, visual imagery refers to the ability to generate a visual representation of an object or a person internally. It should be noted that inner speech can be considered as auditory imagery, and is thus part of mental imagery, just like visual images. While the literature identifies links between anomia and inner speech, we wondered if links existed between visual imagery, lexical access and inner speech. In this preliminary study, we assessed lexical access using an oral naming test, the level of inner speech using a test of homophones judgments from images, and visual imagery capacity using tests allowing to measure it, in post-stroke aphasic persons in chronic phase. We evaluated this in 12 aphasic patients, 9 of whom had a proven lack of the word. Calculations of means, z-scores and Spearman correlations allowed us to analyze the level of dependence of these systems. Thus, we saw that most of the subjects (with and without anomia) have only partially preserved inner speech, and a relatively preserved level of visual imagery. A patient without anomia showed impaired inner speech, suggesting that inner speech could be impaired even in individuals without anomia. In addition, Spearman correlations performed on the 12 subjects revealed relationships between oral naming and level of inner verbalization. On the other hand, they showed that visual imagery ability would be a system independent of oral naming and level of internal verbalization. Future researches would be needed to confirm our results.