Wow! eBook
Language, Interaction and Frontotemporal Dementia: Reverse Engineering the Social Mind
Author(s): Andrea W. Mates (Author, Editor), Lisa Mikesell (Editor), Michael Sean Smith (Editor)
- Publisher: Equinox Publishing Ltd,SW11
- Publication Date: 15 Aug. 2010
- Language: English
- Print length: 256 pages
- ISBN-10: 1845534344
- ISBN-13: 9781845534349
Book Description
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 about 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.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Language, Interaction and Frontotemporal Dementia represents a wonderful example of neuroanthropological research, mixing together insights from neurology, linguistics and anthropology to examine a specific problem, and doing ethnographic research that is informed by ideas about how neural functions shape language use, social interactions and this particular type of dementia. I also deeply appreciate the mix of theoretical and applied work. Daniel Lende, University of Southern Florida, Public Library of Science Blogs
About the Author
Andrea W. Mates’ (UCLA, Applied Linguistics) co-authored The Interactional Instinct along with Namhee Lee, John Schumann, Anna Dina L. Joaquin, and Lisa Mikesell. Lisa Mikesell (UCLA, Applied Linguistics) is the editor of Issues in Applied Linguistics, the journal of the Department of Applied Linguistics at UCLA and was selected as a recipient of a dissertation fellowship by the American Association for University Women (AAUW) for 2008-2009 to continue her work on frontotemporal dementia. Michael Sean Smith (UCLA, Applied Linguistics) focuses his work on Talk-in-Interaction and applying it with neurologically-impaired populations.
