Severe Impairment in Grammar Does Not Preclude Theory of Mind

Current Biology, 2000

Understanding the inter-relationship between language and thought is fundamental to the study of human cognition [1-3]. Some investigators have proposed that propositions in natural language serve to scaffold thinking, by providing, for example, a sequential structure to a massively parallel process [4]. Others have maintained that certain thoughts, such as inferring the mental states of others, termed 'theory of mind' (ToM) reasoning, and identifying causal relationships, necessarily involve language propositions [5]. It has been proposed that ToM reasoning depends upon the possession of syntactic structures such as those that permit the embedding of false propositions within true statements ('Mary knows that John (falsely) thinks chocolates are in the cupboard') [6]. The performance on reasoning tasks of individuals with severe agrammatic aphasia (an impairment of language following a lesion of the perisylvian areas of the language-dominant hemisphere) offers novel insights into the relation between grammar and cognition. We report the unusual case of a patient with agrammatic aphasia of such severity that language propositions were not apparently available at an explicit processing level in any modality of language use. Despite this profound impairment in grammar, he displayed simple causal reasoning and ToM understanding. Thus, reasoning about causes and beliefs involve processes that are independent of propositional language.

ExLing 2011: Proceedings of 4th Tutorial and Research Workshop on Experimental Linguistics, 2019

This study investigates how aphasic impairment impinges on recursivity of language and theory-of-mind inferences. Results of linguistic tests showed that in Broca's aphasia syntactic recursion is substituted for theory-of-mind inferences on the base that linguistic system and theory-of-mind type reasoning interact with one recursion modul in human mind.

Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2001

Research on propositional reasoning (involving 'theory of mind' understanding) in adult patients with aphasia reveals that reasoning can proceed in the absence of explicit grammatical knowledge. Conversely, evidence from studies with deaf children shows that the presence of such knowledge is not sufficient to account for reasoning. These findings are in keeping with recent research on the development of naming, categorization and imitation, indicating that children's reasoning about objects and actions is guided by inferences about others' communicative intentions. We discuss the extent to which reasoning is supported by, and tied to, language in the form of conversational awareness and experience rather than grammar.

Frontiers in Psychology, 2016

Journal of …, 2011

We investigated whether performance on false belief understanding tasks is related to language ability by looking at Russian-speaking children enrolled in a study of a developmental language disorder in a geographically isolated small population characterized by a high prevalence of developmental language disorders. All consenting children between the ages of 6 and 12 (n ¼ 54) were given the Assessment of the Development of Russian Language (ORRIA), nonverbal IQ, short-term memory measures, a narrative task, and the Unexpected Transfer task of false belief. We found that language development scores were related to success on the false belief task even when controlled for IQ and short-term memory. Also, the group who succeeded on the false belief task had significantly higher syntactic complexity scores for narratives than those who failed it. References to mental states, manifested by the children's use of mental, psychological and perception verbs, were not related to performance on the false belief task. These findings support the hypothesis that developed representations of false belief are tied to

Journal of Cognitive …, 2004

& A model of the functional and anatomical basis of belief reasoning is essential for understanding the relationship between belief reasoning and other cognitive processes in both normal development and pathology. Studies of brain-damaged patients can give valuable insights into the nature of belief processing but pose unique methodological problems. The current study addresses these problems by using a nonlinguistic belief-reasoning task with substantially reduced executive demands. A case series of 12 brain-damaged patients is presented. The belief-reasoning errors of four patients with damage to the prefrontal cortex appeared to arise from these patients' executive function problems. The belief-reasoning errors of three patients with damage to the temporo-parietal junction could not easily be accounted for in this way, raising the possibility that this brain region has a necessary role in representing beliefs, rather than handling the executive demands of belief-reasoning tasks. We discuss the importance of gaining empirical evidence about the scope of ''theory of mind'' impairments, and the important role for neuropsychological studies in this project. &

The Open Psychology Journal, 2018

Background:Over the years, different explanations have been given on the relationship between syntax and Theory of Mind,i.e., the ability to attribute mental states to others and predict, describe, and explain behavior based on such mental states. In the present study, we focus on the relationship between false-belief understanding as a crucial aspect of Theory of Mind, and on the ability to master the syntax of complementation,i.e., the ability to produce and comprehend sentences in a recursive way.Objective:Our purpose is to test two main hypotheses on the relationship between false-belief understanding and the ability to master the syntax of complementation: the dependence and the independence of false-belief understanding on syntactic complementation.Method:We analyze studies on children with typical development, deaf children with deaf signing or hearing parents, children with specific language impairment, children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, longitudinal and train...

& A model of the functional and anatomical basis of belief reasoning is essential for understanding the relationship between belief reasoning and other cognitive processes in both normal development and pathology. Studies of brain-damaged patients can give valuable insights into the nature of belief processing but pose unique methodological problems. The current study addresses these problems by using a nonlinguistic belief-reasoning task with substantially reduced executive demands. A case series of 12 brain-damaged patients is presented. The belief-reasoning errors of four patients with damage to the prefrontal cortex appeared to arise from these patients' executive function problems. The belief-reasoning errors of three patients with damage to the temporo-parietal junction could not easily be accounted for in this way, raising the possibility that this brain region has a necessary role in representing beliefs, rather than handling the executive demands of belief-reasoning tasks. We discuss the importance of gaining empirical evidence about the scope of ''theory of mind'' impairments, and the important role for neuropsychological studies in this project. &

Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 2004

The Neural Basis of Mentalizing, 2021