Disorders of the Pragmatics-Cognition Interface

Abstract

There is increasing recognition among clinicians and researchers that many pragmatic disorders are related to cognitive deficits of various kinds. This is to be expected given the dependence of utterance interpretation on diverse cognitive skills, ranging from working memory and attention (key executive functions) to inference generation and the attribution of mental states to the minds of interlocutors (theory of mind). This chapter examines a number of pragmatic disorders in children and adults which are strongly influenced by cognitive impairments of executive function skills and/or theory of mind (ToM) abilities. The findings of a small, but growing number of clinical studies which attempt to relate these cognitive deficits to pragmatic disorders are considered. Theories of ToM and executive functions are examined from a pragmatic perspective. Some of these theories are better equipped than others to explain features of utterance interpretation. These theories, it is argued, display ‘pragmatic adequacy’. The chapter concludes with a critical evaluation of the pragmatic adequacy of executive function and ToM theories and considers how further development of these theories might provide a useful account of the cognitive bases of pragmatic disorders.

Notes

• 1. For an excellent discussion of the different theoretical proposals concerning the nature and extent of this pragmatic intrusion, the reader is referred to Jaszczolt (2012).

• 2. In fact, it is now recognised that to label executive functions as frontal functions is inaccurate. Leh et al. (2010, p. 70) state that ‘[t]raditionally, the frontal cortex has been considered the major brain structure involved in executive functions. More recently, however, several studies in subjects with frontal lesions have shown a large variety of behavioral disturbances other than executive dysfunctions that include, for example, apathy, poor motivation, irritability, euphoric state, etc., highlighting the importance of not using the term executive functions interchangeably with frontal functions’.

• 3. Two exceptions are: Sperber and Wilson (2002), who have examined theoretical proposals relating to ToM in the context of normal utterance interpretation; and Martin and McDonald (2003), who have assessed ToM impairments and executive dysfunction as theoretical contenders in an explanation of pragmatic disorders.

• 4. Fodor (1983, p. 70) captures this feature of modules as follows: ‘to the extent that input systems are informationally encapsulated, of all the information that might in principle bear upon a problem of perceptual analysis only a portion (perhaps only quite a small and stereotyped portion) is actually admitted for consideration. This is to say that speed is purchased for input systems by permitting them to ignore lots of the facts’.

• 5. This point addresses an issue raised by Fodor (1983). Fodor claims that background knowledge must be shown to influence an input system prior to its production of an output in order for this top–down influence to represent a proper challenge to modularity. He expresses this point as follows: ‘We sometimes know that the world can’t really be the way that it looks, and such cases may legitimately be described as the correction of input analyses by top–down information flow […] However, to demonstrate that sort of interaction between input analyses and background knowledge is not, in and of itself, tantamount to demonstrating the cognitive penetrability of the former; you need also to show that the locus of the top–down effect is internal to the input system. That is, you need to show that the information fed back interacts with interlevels of input-processing and not merely with the final results of such processing. The penetrability of a system is, by definition, its susceptibility to top–down effects at stages prior to its production of output’ (Fodor 1983, pp. 73–74). The discussion of the main text demonstrates that a ToM module is penetrable in exactly this sense.

• 6. Sperber and Wilson (1995, p. 137) state that ‘…assuming that context is uniquely determined leads to absurdities. However, there is nothing in the nature of a context or of comprehension, which excludes the possibility that context formation is open to choices and revisions throughout the comprehension process.’

• 7. It is also worth pointing out that several studies have demonstrated an association between executive function and ToM. They include developmental investigations, studies of the relationship between executive function and ToM throughout adulthood and in subjects with a range of clinical disorders. In a study of 82 preschoolers, Müller et al. (2012) found that executive function at ages 2 and 3 significantly predicted ToM at ages 3 and 4, respectively. However, ToM at ages 2 and 3 failed to explain a significant amount of variance in executive function at age 4. Phillips et al. (2011) found that difficulties in updating information in working memory partially mediated age differences in false belief (ToM) reasoning in 129 adults between the ages of 18 and 86 years. In a review of studies of ToM and executive function in patients with acquired neurological pathology, Aboulafia-Brakha et al. (2011) found that executive function and ToM are tightly associated. However, no executive sub-process was specifically associated with ToM performance.