Language, Interaction and Frontotemporal Dementia: Reverse Engineering the Social Mind - Hardcover

Andrea W. Mates

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1845534344 ISBN 13: 9781845534349

Publisher: Equinox Publishing Ltd,SW11, 2010

Synopsis

In the past before improving technologies allowed for the direct observation of brain activity, brain damaged patients were a prime avenue for understanding language structure and inferring back to brain function. Now with the rapid developments in neuroscience, what we do know about the brain can inform us about language allowing us to build hypotheses about the role particular brain regions perform in language use. Brain damaged patients thus become populations which serve as test cases. In this volume, the researchers focus on the interactions of frontotemporal dementia patients. These patients have right hemisphere, frontal and temporal pole atrophy which leaves their cognitive abilities intact, but their social interactions impaired and their personalities changed. The volume opens with a discussion of the frontal lobes and their expected contributions to language as a tool for social interaction. Then a conversation analytic approach is applied to analyze what changes in the structure of interaction lead to a sense that the interactions are impaired or inappropriate. Finally, the volume ends with a look forward to what FTD contributes to our understanding of human sociality and what has been gained in our understanding of the brain and language.

About this title

About the Author

Andrea W. Mates' (UCLA, Applied Linguistics) co-authored The Interactional Instinct along with Namhee Lee, John Schumann, Anna Dina L. Joaquin, and Lisa Mikesell. Lisa Mikesell (UCLA, Applied Linguistics) is the editor of Issues in Applied Linguistics, the journal of the Department of Applied Linguistics at UCLA and was selected as a recipient of a dissertation fellowship by the American Association for University Women (AAUW) for 2008-2009 to continue her work on frontotemporal dementia. Michael Sean Smith (UCLA, Applied Linguistics) focuses his work on Talk-in-Interaction and applying it with neurologically-impaired populations.

Edition details

• Publisher: Equinox Publishing Ltd,SW11
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1845534344
• ISBN 13: 9781845534349
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Andrea W. Mates, Lisa Mikesell, Michael Sean Smith