Linguistic Inability or Poor Performance: Dissociating Scalar Implicature Generation and Mismatch in the Developing Brain

Autor/inn/en	Shetreet, Einat; Chierchia, Gennaro; Gaab, Nadine
Titel	Linguistic Inability or Poor Performance: Dissociating Scalar Implicature Generation and Mismatch in the Developing Brain
Quelle	In: Developmental Psychology, 50 (2014) 9, S.2264-2275 (12 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0012-1649
DOI	10.1037/a0037368
Schlagwörter	Responses; Brain Hemisphere Functions; Adults; Children; Pragmatics; Comparative Analysis; Computation; Language Acquisition; Language Skills; Neurolinguistics; Diagnostic Tests; Sentences; Pictorial Stimuli; Comprehension; Statistical Analysis; Cognitive Processes; Massachusetts; Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test; Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Child; Kind; Kinder; Pragmalinguistik; Sprachaneignung; Spracherwerb; Language skill; Sprachkompetenz; Neurolinguistisches Programmieren; Diagnostic test; Diagnostischer Test; Sentence analysis; Satzanalyse; Fantasieanregung; Verstehen; Verständnis; Statistische Analyse; Cognitive process; Kognitiver Prozess; Master-Studiengang
Abstract	Behavioral investigations of the acquisition of "some" have shown that children favor its logical interpretation ("some and possibly all"). Adults, however, use the pragmatic interpretation ("some but not all") derived by a scalar implicature. Certain experimental manipulations increase children's rates of adult-like responses, indicating that children are capable of computing implicatures. A functional MRI (fMRI) study examining adults linked the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) to implicature computation, and prefrontal regions, the left middle frontal gyrus (MFG), and medial frontal gyrus (MeFG), to processing the mismatch between implicatures and the context in which they were presented. In the current fMRI study, we aimed to determine whether children's failure to give pragmatic interpretations to some results from a failure in implicature computation or in implicature-mismatch processing. We explored children's brain activations with the same experimental task administered to adults. In a region-of-interest analysis, children showed an activational pattern similar to the one observed in adults in the left IFG with increased activations for the implicature conditions. By contrast, in the left MFG, children showed decreased activation for the mismatched implicatures compared with matched and no implicature conditions. No difference between the conditions was observed in the MeFG. For both implicature conditions, no activation in the left IFG was observed when comparing adults and children directly. However, for mismatched implicatures, adults showed greater activation in the prefrontal regions compared with children. Our results suggest that children may have an adult-like computation of implicatures (even when their behavior does not necessarily indicate that), but they fail in resolving implicature-mismatch situations. (As Provided).
Anmerkungen	American Psychological Association. Journals Department, 750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002. Tel: 800-374-2721; Tel: 202-336-5510; Fax: 202-336-5502; e-mail: order@apa.org; Web site: http://www.apa.org
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01