Neuropragmatics: Extralinguistic Communication after Closed Head Injury

doi:10.1006/brln.2000.2430

Brain and Language

Volume 77, Issue 1, April 2001, Pages 72-94

https://doi.org/10.1006/brln.2000.2430 Get rights and content

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 that performance decreased 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.

References (34)

G. Airenti et al.
Conversation and behavior games in the pragmatics of dialogue
Cognitive Science
(1993)
G. Airenti et al.
Failures, exploitations and deceits in communication
Journal of Pragmatics
(1993)
B.G. Bara et al.
Neuropragmatics: Neuropsychological constraints on formal theories of dialogue
Brain and Language
(1997)
M. Colombetti
Formal semantics for mutual belief
Artificial Intelligence
(1993)
L. Petitto
On the autonomy of language and gesture: Evidence from the acquisition of personal pronouns in American Sign Language
Cognition
(1987)
R. Reiter
A logic for default reasoning
Artificial Intelligence
(1980)
B. Stemmer
A pragmatic approach to neurolinguistics: Requests (re-)considered
Brain and Language
(1994)
M. Tirassa
Communicative competence and the architecture of the mind/brain
Brain and Language
(1999)
J.L. Austin
How to do things with words
(1962)
B.G. Bara et al.
Simple and complex speech acts: What makes the difference within a developmental perspective

B.G. Bara et al.

Development and decay of extralinguistic communication

Brain and Cognition

(2000)

B.G. Bara et al.

A mentalist framework for linguistic and extralinguistic communication

Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Cognitive Science (ECCS '99),

(1999)

B.G. Bara et al.

Neuropragmatics: Brain and communication

Brain and Language

(2000)

D. Caplan

Language: Structure, processing, and disorders

(1992)

H.H. Clark

Using language

(1996)

J. Ehrlich et al.

Rating communication behaviours in the head-injured adult

Brain Injury

(1989)

Cited by (43)

Intact speech-gesture integration in narrative recall by adults with moderate-severe traumatic brain injury
2023, Neuropsychologia
Real-world communication is situated in rich multimodal contexts, containing speech and gesture. Speakers often convey unique information in gesture that is not present in the speech signal (e.g., saying “He searched for a new recipe” while making a typing gesture). We examine the narrative retellings of participants with and without moderate-severe traumatic brain injury across three timepoints over two online Zoom sessions to investigate whether people with TBI can integrate information from co-occurring speech and gesture and if information from gesture persists across delays.
60 participants with TBI and 60 non-injured peers watched videos of a narrator telling four short stories. On key details, the narrator produced complementary gestures that conveyed unique information. Participants retold the stories at three timepoints: immediately after, 20-min later, and one-week later. We examined the words participants used when retelling these key details, coding them as a Speech Match (e.g., “He searched for a new recipe”), a Gesture Match (e.g., “He searched for a new recipe online), or Other (“He looked for a new recipe”). We also examined whether participants produced representative gestures themselves when retelling these details.
Despite recalling fewer story details, participants with TBI were as likely as non-injured peers to report information from gesture in their narrative retellings. All participants were more likely to report information from gesture and produce representative gestures themselves one-week later compared to immediately after hearing the story.
We demonstrated that speech-gesture integration is intact after TBI in narrative retellings. This finding has exciting implications for the utility of gesture to support comprehension and memory after TBI and expands our understanding of naturalistic multimodal language processing in this population.
Communicative-pragmatic disorders in traumatic brain injury: The role of theory of mind and executive functions
2017, Brain and Language
Previous research has shown that communicative-pragmatic ability, as well as executive functions (EF) and Theory of Mind (ToM), may be impaired in individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI). However, the role of such cognitive deficits in explaining communicative-pragmatic difficulty in TBI has still not been fully investigated. The study examined the relationship between EF (working memory, planning and flexibility) and ToM and communicative-pragmatic impairment in patients with TBI. 30 individuals with TBI and 30 healthy controls were assessed using the Assessment Battery of Communication (ABaCo), and a set of cognitive, EF and ToM, tasks. The results showed that TBI participants performed poorly in comprehension and production tasks in the ABaCo, using both linguistic and extralinguistic means of expression, and that they were impaired in EF and ToM abilities. Cognitive difficulties were able to predict the pragmatic performance of TBI individuals, with both executive functions and ToM contributing to explaining patients’ scores on the ABaCo.
Assessment Battery for Communication: Development of two equivalent forms
2012, Journal of Communication Disorders
Citation Excerpt :
The theoretical basis of the ABaCo is Cognitive Pragmatics (Bara, 2010), a theory on the cognitive processes underlying human communication. Cognitive Pragmatics has been used to explain the development of communication in typically developing children (Bosco & Bucciarelli, 2008; Bosco, Bucciarelli, & Bara, 2004; Bosco, Bucciarelli, & Bara, 2006; Bosco, Vallana & Bucciarelli, 2009, 2012), as well as communicative deficits in patients with different patterns of brain impairment (Bara, Tirassa, & Zettin, 1997; Bara, Bosco, & Bucciarelli, 1999; Bara, Cutica, & Tirassa, 2001; Bosco, Bara & Bono 2012). The ABaCo (Sacco et al., 2008) includes a total of 180 items: 72 in vivo items and 108 items based on videotaped scenes.
The aim of this paper was to develop and test two equivalent forms of the Assessment Battery for Communication (ABaCo), a tool for evaluating pragmatic abilities in patients with neuropsychological and psychiatric disorders. The equivalent forms were created using the data from a sample of 390 children, then tested in a sample of 30 patients with traumatic brain injury. Equivalent forms of the same test are useful in clinical practice and intervention research, when performance needs to be tested on two separate occasions, for example before and after a rehabilitation program. The present results provide additional evidence on the psychometric functioning of the equivalent forms of the ABaCo and their usability in a clinical context.
Learning outcomes: The reader will be able to discuss the evidence of the psychometric propriety of the equivalent forms of the ABaCo and describe its potential usefulness.
Operative and nonoperative linguistic outcomes in brain injury patients
2012, Journal of the Neurological Sciences
Citation Excerpt :
In this population, comprehension and production of linguistic macrostructures are disturbed [4,5]. The available reports about impairment in pragmatic level of language after head trauma are more related to extralinguistic and paralinguistic facets [6–9]. Post-trauma linguistic disorder is accompanied by deficit in some cognitive skills including problem solving, working memory, and executive functions [10–16].
Linguistic function is one of vulnerable aspects of traumatic brain injury (TBI) which may have destructive effects on patients' communicative activities and daily life, years following trauma. This paper attempts to answer the controversy whether surgery affects increase and decrease of linguistic impairment or not.
Two hundred forty-one TBI patients aged 18–65 with abnormal CT findings and at least 20 minute post-trauma amnesia (PTA), who were conscious at discharge, participated in this study. Based on operative intervention, the samples were divided into two groups: operative and nonoperative. Cognitive and aphasic deficits were inspected formally and pragmatic disorder was informally appraised at discharge.
The groups had no significant differences in aphasia incidence and language pragmatic impairment, though they were significantly distinctive in aphasia subcategories and cognitive deficit after trauma. Fluent aphasia was more common in both groups alike. In aphasia subcategories, however, transcortical sensory aphasia (TSA) in operative and anomia in nonoperative group were the most prevalent. Several variables appeared strikingly related to higher aphasia in operative groups as follows: moderate to severe injury, 18–35 and over 50 years of age, more than 1 week PTA, intracranial surgery of multiple lesions in left or bilateral hemisphere fronto-temporal cortex plus post-trauma cognitive and pragmatic impairments, and diffuse axonal injuries.
Almost certainly, meaningful drop of cognitive function post surgery roots back in significant loss of initial consciousness level. Related factors to postoperative aphasia suggest taking policies through surgery intervention. Discerning the indispensable contributions of neurosurgeons, neurolinguists, and neuroscientists, results inspire more clinical future studies.
Do executive function and theory of mind predict pragmatic abilities following traumatic brain injury? An analysis of sincere, deceitful and ironic communicative acts
2018, Journal of Communication Disorders
Citation Excerpt :
On both the comprehension and production subscales of the linguistic and extralinguistic scales of the ABaCo (Angeleri et al., 2012), individuals with TBI performed worse than controls for all the investigated phenomena, namely, sincere, deceitful and ironic communicative acts. This result is in line with previous investigations (Angeleri et al., 2008; Bara et al., 2001). Results also showed an interaction effect between the group (individuals with TBI vs controls) and type of pragmatic phenomenon (standard communicative acts, deceit and irony) in linguistic and extralinguistic production tasks, showing that the individuals with TBI were more impaired in comprehension and production of the most demanding communicative phenomena, namely, deceit and irony, while they performed similarly to the controls in comprehension and production of sincere communicative acts.
Quality of life and social integration are strongly influenced by the ability to communicate and previous research has shown that pragmatic ability can be specifically impaired in individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI). In addition, TBI usually results in damage to the frontotemporal lobes with a consequent impairment of cognitive functions, i.e., attention, memory, executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM). The role of the underlying cognitive deficits in determining the communicative-pragmatic difficulties of an individual with TBI is not yet completely clear.
This study examined the relationship between the ability to understand and produce various kinds of communicative acts, (i.e., sincere, deceitful and ironic) and the above-mentioned cognitive and ToM abilities following TBI. Thirty-five individuals with TBI and thirty-five healthy controls were given tasks assessing their ability to comprehend and produce sincere, deceitful and ironic communicative acts belonging to the linguistic and extralinguistic scales of the Assessment Battery for Communication (ABaCo), together with a series of EF and ToM tasks.
The results showed that, when compared to healthy individuals, participants with TBI performed poorly overall in the comprehension and production of all the pragmatic phenomena investigated, (i.e., sincere, deceitful and ironic communicative acts), and they also exhibited impaired performance at the level of all the cognitive functions examined. Individuals with TBI also showed a decreasing trend in performance in dealing with sincere, deceitful and ironic communicative acts, on both the comprehension and production subscales of the linguistic and extralinguistic scales. Furthermore, a hierarchical regression analysis revealed that – in patients with TBI but not in the controls – EF had a significant effect on the comprehension of linguistic and extralinguistic irony only, while the percentage of explained variance increased with the inclusion of theory of mind. Indeed, ToM had a significant role in determining patients’ performance in the extralinguistic production of sincere and deceitful communicative acts, linguistic and extralinguistic comprehension of deceit and the linguistic production of irony. However, with regard to the performance of patients with TBI in the various pragmatic tasks investigated, (i.e., sincere, deceitful and ironic communicative acts), EF was able to explain the pattern of patients’ scores in the linguistic and extralinguistic comprehension but not in production ability. Furthermore, ToM seemed not to be able to explain the decreasing trend in the performance of patients in managing the various kinds of communicative acts investigated.
Impairments in social cognition following severe traumatic brain injury
2013, Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society

View all citing articles on Scopus

^☆

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Bruno G. Bara, Università di Torino, Centro di Scienza Cognitiva, via Lagrange, 3, 10123 Turin, Italy. E-mail: [email protected].

The authors are listed in alphabetical order. This research was funded by the Ministero dell' Università e della Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica (MURST), 98911197320-004, 1998/99. We thank Marina Zettin for her assistance with finding and testing the patients. We are also grateful to the personnel of Presidio Ospedaliero Ausiliatrice, Torino, for their kind cooperation.

View full text

Regular ArticleNeuropragmatics: Extralinguistic Communication after Closed Head Injury☆

Abstract

Cognitive Science

Journal of Pragmatics

Brain and Language

Artificial Intelligence

Cognition

Artificial Intelligence

Brain and Language

Brain and Language

How to do things with words

Simple and complex speech acts: What makes the difference within a developmental perspective

Development and decay of extralinguistic communication

Brain and Cognition

A mentalist framework for linguistic and extralinguistic communication

Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Cognitive Science (ECCS '99),

Neuropragmatics: Brain and communication

Brain and Language

Language: Structure, processing, and disorders

Using language

Rating communication behaviours in the head-injured adult

Brain Injury

Regular Article
Neuropragmatics: Extralinguistic Communication after Closed Head Injury☆