This four-fold project is designed to determine which natural language communicative capacities are spared in aphasia; to pinpoint the relationship between spared language capacities and general cognitive skills; and to evaluate the possibility of enhancing communicative powers through the mastery of alternative systems of communication. First, experimental studies will seek to delineate the roles of probabilistic heuristic strategies and algorithmic computations in language comprehension. Second, a program of systematic observation and experimentation of progmatic factors in communication will be undertaken; this study will yield a preliminary portrait of the linguistic and paralinguistic (e.g., gestural) strategies employed by aphasics as they attempt to communicate in their daily milieu. Third, a series of investigations will focus on the interaction between linguistic and cognitive capacities; among the topics examind are "higher-level" concepts (e.g., a sense of time), specific operations performed upon such concepts (e.g., metaphor, humor), and more general cognitive operations (e.g., reversing). Finally attempts will continue within a therapeutic setting to devise an alternative Visual Communication system. Current goals include making the system more functional; isolating which features lead to mastery of the communication system; and capturing the essentials of the system in a less cumbersome medium, namely a limited sign-language.
NIH ExPorter
NIH ExPorter