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

by Mates, Andrea W.; Mikesell, Lisa; Smith, Michael Sean

• ISBN13: 9781845534349
• ISBN10: 1845534344
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-06-30
• Publisher: David Brown Book Co

Summary

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 of 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.

Author Biography

Andrea W. Mates is co-author of The Interactional Instinct, with Namhee Lee, John Schumann, Anna Dina L. Joaquin, and Lisa Mikesell. Lisa Mikesell is the former editor of Issues in Applied Linguistics and is a postdoctoral researcher at the Semel Institute Health Services Research Center. Michael Sean Smith is a doctoral student and is currently completing his PhD in the Department of Applied Linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. vii
Contributors	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Social Regulation in Frontotemporal Dementia: A Case Study	p. 23
Exploring the Moral Bases of Frontotemporal Dementia through Social Action	p. 49
Examining Perseverative Behaviors of a Frontotemporal Dementia Patient and Caregiver Responses: The Benefits of Observing Ordinary Interactions and Reflections on Caregiver Stress	p. 85
The Interactive Organization of "Insight": Clinical Interviews with Frontotemporal Dementia Patients	p. 115
Using Social Deficits in Frontotemporal Dementia to Develop a Neurobiology of Person Reference	p. 139
The Prefrontal Cortex: Through Maturation, Socialization, and Regression	p. 167
Dispassionate Heuristic Rationality Fails to Sustain Social Relationships	p. 199
Brain, Language, Society: Where FTD Has Led Us	p. 243
Appendices	p. 253
Index	p. 257
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