creators_name: Bara, Bruno G. creators_name: Cutica, Ilaria creators_name: Tirassa, Maurizio creators_id: maurizio.tirassa@unito.it type: journalp datestamp: 2010-04-01 11:36:48 lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:57:35 metadata_visibility: show title: Neuropragmatics: Extralinguistic communication after closed head injury ispublished: pub subjects: cog-psy subjects: ling-prag subjects: neuro-ling subjects: neuro-psy subjects: phil-lang subjects: phil-mind subjects: psy-ling full_text_status: public abstract: This work is concerned with the decay of communicative abilities after head trauma. A protocol composed of 16 videotaped scenes was devised in order to investigate the comprehension of several types of communicative actions realized with extralinguistic means, like pointing or clapping. The protocol was administered to 30 closed head injured individuals. The results showed a decreasing performance from simple standard acts, to complex standard acts, deceits, and ironies. The subjects' performance was worse with the scenes reproducing failing, rather than successful, communicative actions. The results are compared with those we previously obtained with a linguistic protocol. A theory of the cognitive processes underlying intentional communication is outlined and used to explain the results. date: 2001 date_type: published publication: Brain and Language number: 77 pagerange: 72-94 refereed: TRUE referencetext: Airenti, G., Bara, B.G., Colombetti, M. 1993a. Conversation and behavior games in the pragmatics of dialogue. Cognitive Science, 17, 197-256. Airenti, G., Bara, B.G., Colombetti, M. 1993b. Failures, exploitations and deceits in communication. Journal of Pragmatics, 20, 303-326. Austin, J.L. 1962. How to do things with words (2nd ed. revised by J.O. Ormson & M. Sbisà, 1975). London: Oxford University Press. Bara, B.G., Bosco, F.M., Bucciarelli M. 1999. Simple and complex speech acts: What makes the difference within a developmental perspective. Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Vancouver, BC. Bara, B.G., Bucciarelli, M., Geminiani G. 1999. Development and decay of extralinguistic communication. Brain and Cognition (in press). Bara, B.G., Tirassa, M. 1999. A mentalist framework for linguistic and extralinguistic communication. Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Cognitive Science (ECCS '99), Siena, Italy. Bara, B.G., Tirassa M., 2000. Neuropragmatics: Brain and communication. Brain and Language (in press). Bara, B.G., Tirassa, M., Zettin, M. 1997. Neuropragmatics: Neuropsychological constraints on formal theories of dialogue. Brain and Language, 59, 7-49. Caplan, D. 1992. Language: Structure, processing, and disorders. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Clark, H.H. 1996. Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Colombetti, M. 1993. Formal semantics for mutual belief. Artificial Intelligence, 62, 341-353. Colombetti, M. 1999. A modal logic of intentional communication. Mathematical Social Sciences, 38, 171-196. Ehrlich, J., Barry, P. 1989. Rating communication behaviours in the head-injured adult. Brain Injury, 3, 193-198. Feyereisen, P., Seron, X. 1982. Nonverbal communication and aphasia: A review. Brain and Language, 16, 191-236. Foldi, N.S., Cicone, M., Gardner, H. 1983. Pragmatic aspects of communication in brain-damaged patients. In S.J. Segalowitz (Ed.), Language functions and brain organization. New York: Academic. Grice, H.P. 1989. Studies in the way of words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Holland, A. 1982. Observing functional communication of aphasic adults. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 47, 50-56. Joanette, Y., Brownell, H.H., (Eds.). 1991. Discourse ability in brain damage: Theoretical and empirical perspec-tives. New York: Springer. McDonald, S. 1992. Differential pragmatic language loss after closed head injury: Ability to comprehend conver-sational implicature. Applied Psycholinguistics, 13, 295-312. McDonald, S., van Sommers, P. 1993. Pragmatic language skills after closed head injury: Ability to negotiate requests. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 10, 297-315. Mentis, M., Prutting, C.A. 1987. Cohesion in the discourse of normal and head injured adults. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 30, 88-98. Page, E.B. 1963. Ordered hypotheses for multiple treatments: A significance test for linear ranks. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 58 216-230. Petitto, L. 1987. On the autonomy of language and gesture: Evidence from the acquisition of personal pronouns in American Sign Language. Cognition, 27, 1-52. Poizner, H., Klima, E.S., Bellugi, U. 1987. What the hands reveal about the brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Reiter, R. 1980. A logic for default reasoning. Artificial Intelligence, 13, 81-132. Searle, J.R. 1969. Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, J.R. 1979. Expression and meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shallice, T., Burgess, P.W. 1991. Deficits in strategy application following frontal lobe damage in man. Brain, 114, 727-741. Sherratt, S.M., Penn, C. 1990. Discourse in a right-hemisphere brain-damaged subject. Aphasiology, 4, 539-560. Sperber, D., Wilson, D. (1986) Relevance. Communication and cognition. Oxford: Blackwell. Stemmer, B. 1994. A pragmatic approach to neurolinguistics: Requests (re)considered. Brain and Language, 46, 565-591. Tirassa, M. 1997. Mental states in communication. Proceedings of the 2nd European Conference on Cognitive Science (ECCS '97), Manchester, UK. Tirassa, M. 1999. Communicative competence and the architecture of the mind/brain. Brain and Language, 68, 419-441. Wyckoff, L.H. 1984. Narrative and procedural discourse following closed head injury. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Florida. citation: Bara, Bruno G. and Cutica, Ilaria and Tirassa, Maurizio (2001) Neuropragmatics: Extralinguistic communication after closed head injury. [Journal (Paginated)] document_url: http://cogprints.org/6813/1/2001-NeuroCom-BL.pdf