Acquisition and Use of Common Ground in Communication

描述(申请人提供)：这个项目的目标是通过调查在交流中获得和使用“共同点”来帮助理解记忆和语言之间的神经基础和关系。实验方法使用损伤方法来将神经心理学和神经解剖学的发现联系起来，使用神经疾病患者的小组研究和多个单一病例研究。这项拟议的工作建立在我在博士工作中一个令人兴奋的发现的基础上：严重健忘症患者可以在与熟悉的伴侣的定期互动中获得共同点(共享的参考标签，用于促进快速有效的沟通)。然而，这种学习的关键认知成分和神经解剖学相关性尚未确定。这里的一个原则目标是定义和描述那些在交流中支持共同点的认知和神经机制。在我的实验工作中使用的任务的性质涉及到“真实世界”的学习和交流。事实上，健忘症患者在这种真正现实世界类型的协作互动中表现得如此出色，就康复的可能性而言，这是非常令人兴奋的。这项工作的第二个目的是通过设计和实施一组单一病例干预研究来测试这一范式的临床效果，该研究使用协作参照任务在有局限性学习和记忆障碍的患者中进行，旨在改善他们的日常功能。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this project is to contribute to the understanding of the neural basis for and relationship between memory and language, by investigating the acquisition and use of "common ground" in communication. The experimental approach uses the lesion method to interrelate neuropsychological and neuroanatomical findings, using both group studies and multiple single-case studies of neurological patients with focal brain lesions. The proposed work builds on an exciting finding from my doctoral work: severely amnesic patients can acquire common ground (shared referential labels used to facilitate rapid and efficient communication) in regular interactions with familiar partners. The crucial cognitive components and neuroanatomical correlates of this learning, however, have yet to be determined. One principle aim here is to define and characterize those cognitive and neural mechanisms supporting common ground in communication. The nature of the task used in my experimental work involves "real-world" learning and communication. The fact that individuals with amnesia performed so well in this truly real-world type of collaborative interaction is very exciting with respect to rehabilitation possibilities. The second aim of this work is to test the clinical efficacy of this paradigm by designing and implementing a collection of single case intervention studies using the collaborative referencing task in patients with circumscribed impairments of learning and memory, aimed at improving their daily functioning.