The role of short-term memory in sentence production

项目概述：本研究的主要目的是了解正常和脑损伤个体的短期记忆（STM）过程如何与句子生成相互作用。为此，本实验将研究具有特定类型STM缺陷的失语患者和神经正常对照者的几种句子生成现象。一组被提议的实验将调查说话者倾向于选择句法结构，以允许提前提到可获得的和给定的信息（可获得性效应和给定的新顺序），看看什么样的记忆表征是这些效应的基础。这些影响将在严格控制的实验方法和更自然的生产任务中进行评估。这不仅将扩展我们研究结果的有效性，而且将为未来的假设提供丰富的句子生成数据来源。第二组实验将研究说话者重复句法结构的倾向（句法启动），并研究抑制在说话者句法选择中的作用。在这两组实验中，我们的目标是通过检查患者组如何与对照组分离来更好地理解这些句子产生现象的机制，从而阐明STM在句子产生中的作用。这些研究的结果应该为句子生成理论和STM理论提供信息。最后，在接受病变缺陷分析和功能性MRI的培训后，将在支持的最后一年设计并进行进一步的实验。这些研究将进一步阐明STM、抑制和句子生成之间的关系。相关性：造句和短期记忆（STM）的问题与多种疾病（包括失语症和阿尔茨海默病）有关。更好地理解句子的产生是如何依赖于STM的，这不仅有助于语言产生和记忆的理论，而且应该有助于更好地理解脑损伤患者语言缺陷的确切原因。反过来，这可能有助于开发有效的治疗方法。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Project Summary: The main objective of the proposed research is to understand how short-term memory (STM) processes interact with sentence production, both in normal and in brain-damaged individuals. To this end, the proposed experiments will examine several sentence production phenomena in aphasic patients with specific types of STM deficits, and in neurologically normal control subjects. One set of proposed experiments will investigate speakers' tendency to choose syntactic structures allowing for early mention of both accessible and of given information (accessibility effects and given-new ordering), to see what kinds of memory representations underlie these effects. These effects will be assessed both in tightly controlled experimental methodologies and in more naturalistic production tasks. This will not only extend the validity of our findings, but also will provide a rich source of sentence production data to generate future hypotheses. The second set of proposed experiments will investigate speakers' tendency to repeat syntactic structures (syntactic priming), and investigate the role of inhibition in speakers' choices between syntactic alternatives. In both sets of experiments, the goal is to better understand the mechanisms underlying these sentence production phenomena by examining how patient groups dissociate from control groups, thus illuminating the role played by STM in sentence production. The results of these studies should inform both theories of sentence production and of STM. Finally, after receiving training in lesion-deficit analysis and functional MRI, further experiments will be designed and conducted during the final year of support. These studies should further illuminate the relationship between STM, inhibition, and sentence production. Relevance: Problems with sentence production and with short-term memory (STM) are associated with a variety of disorders (including aphasia and Alzheimer's disease). A better understanding of how sentence production relies on STM should be helpful not only for theories of language production and of memory, but also should lead to a better understanding of exactly what underlies the language deficits in brain-damaged patients. This, in turn, is likely to aid in the development of effective therapies.