DEVELOPMENT AND NEURAL BASES OF WORDS AND RULES

单词和规则的发展和神经基础

• 批准号: 6193198
• 负责人: STEVEN PINKER
• 金额: $ 33.11万
• 依托单位: MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1983
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1983-09-01 至 2005-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6193198
• 关键词: bioimaging /biomedical imaging; child (0-11); clinical research; human subject; language development; learning; magnetic resonance imaging; magnetoencephalography; mental process; neural information processing; psycholinguistics; twin /multiplet; verbal learning

This project studies how language works, how it develops in the child, and how it is computed by the brain. The key idea is that language is an interaction between words, which are pairings between a sound and a meaning stored in memory, and rules, which combine words into larger words and sentences. It uses irregular (bring-brought) and regular (walk-walked) inflection to study this interaction, because irregular forms are memorized, like words, whereas regular forms are generated by a rule ("add -ed"), like sentences, but they are matched in meaning, grammar, and complexity. The pacing of language development will be studied in twins: if a part of language develops in closer synchrony in identical twins (who share all their genes) than fraternal twins (who share half their genes), genes may affect the acquisition of that part; if the pattern is the same in the two kinds of twins, acquisition would be paced instead by environmental input. By measuring the development of vocabulary, word combinations, and past tense forms (especially errors like breaked, which could only be produced by rule), one can determine whether word-memory and rule-combination are differently influenced by biological maturation and by information in the environment. Processing of language in the brain will be studied using magnetoencephalography (MEG), the measurement of rapid magnetic signals from the cortex, which can map brain activation as a person assembles (regular) or retrieves (irregular) past tense forms. These studies will be complemented with event-related functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of past tense generation, and by measuring lesion-symptom correlations in neurological patients asked to provide past tense forms for regular, irregular, and novel verbs. The benefits of documenting the development and neural bases of words and rules include better understanding of children with delayed and disordered language, and of the abilities of patients with lesions or degeneration of the brain.

这个项目研究语言是如何工作的，它在儿童中是如何发展的，以及它是如何被大脑计算出来的。其核心思想是，语言是词和规则之间的互动，词是存储在记忆中的声音和意义之间的配对，规则是将词组合成更大的词和句子。它使用不规则的(带来的)和规则的(走路的)词尾变化来研究这种相互作用，因为不规则的形式是记忆的，就像单词一样，而规则的形式是由规则(加法)产生的，比如句子，但它们在意义、语法和复杂性上是匹配的。语言发展的节奏将在双胞胎身上进行研究：如果同卵双胞胎(拥有所有基因)的一部分语言发展更同步，而异卵双胞胎(拥有一半基因)的语言发展更同步，基因可能会影响该部分的习得；如果两种双胞胎的模式相同，习得将由环境输入来调节。通过测量词汇、单词组合和过去时态的发展(特别是像Breaked这样的错误，只有规则才能产生)，我们可以确定单词记忆和规则组合是否受到生物成熟和环境信息的不同影响。将使用脑磁图(MEG)来研究大脑中语言的处理。脑磁图是对来自大脑皮层的快速磁信号的测量，它可以在一个人组装(规则)或提取(不规则)过去时态时映射大脑的激活。这些研究将补充过去时生成的事件相关功能磁共振成像，并通过测量神经科患者的病变-症状相关性，要求提供规则、不规则和新动词的过去时形式。记录单词和规则的发展和神经基础的好处包括更好地理解语言延迟和障碍的儿童，以及大脑损伤或退化患者的能力。