Journal article
Bilateral Amygdala Damage Impairs the Acquisition and Use of Common Ground in Social Interaction
Neuropsychology, Vol.25(2), pp.137-146
03/2011
DOI: 10.1037/a0021123
PMCID: PMC3058833
PMID: 21381821
Abstract
Objective:
The development of "common ground," or mutual knowledge of shared information, is believed to require the ability to update a mental representation of another person's thoughts and knowledge based on verbal information and nonverbal social and emotional signals, to facilitate economical communication. As in other forms of everyday social communication, the development of common ground likely requires the orchestration of multiple cognitive processes supported by various neural systems. Here, we investigate the contribution of the amygdala to these processes.
Method:
SM, a patient with complete, focal, bilateral amygdala damage, and deficits in social and emotional processing, and five healthy comparison participants, each interacted with a familiar partner. We investigated the participants' ability to develop and use referential labels across 24 dynamic, collaborative interactions. Participants verbally directed their partner how to arrange a set of 12 abstract tangrams while separated by a low barrier, allowing them to see each other but hiding their tangrams.
Results:
In contrast to comparison participants, SM exhibited an impaired rate of learning across trials and did not show the typical simplification in the labels generated during the interactions. Detailed analyses of SM's interactional discourse and social behavior suggested that she has impaired perspective-taking or what can be interpreted as deficient "theory of mind," manifested in abnormal "language-in-use."
Conclusions:
These results support the conclusion that the amygdala, a structure critical for social and emotional processing, plays an important role in the acquisition and use of common ground and in social communication more broadly.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Bilateral Amygdala Damage Impairs the Acquisition and Use of Common Ground in Social Interaction
- Creators
- Rupa Gupta - Department of Neurology, Division of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of IowaMelissa C DuffDaniel Tranel - Department of Neurology, Division of Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Neuropsychology, Vol.25(2), pp.137-146
- DOI
- 10.1037/a0021123
- PMID
- 21381821
- PMCID
- PMC3058833
- NLM abbreviation
- Neuropsychology
- ISSN
- 0894-4105
- eISSN
- 1931-1559
- Publisher
- American Psychological Association
- Grant note
- DOI: 10.13039/100000026, name: National Institute on Drug Abuse, award: R01 DA022549; DOI: 10.13039/100000065, name: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, award: P50 NS19632; DOI: 10.13039/100000055, name: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, award: F32DC008825
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 03/2011
- Academic Unit
- Neurology; Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute
- Record Identifier
- 9984002496202771
Metrics
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