Morton Ann Gernsbacher - US grants

The candidate's research goal is to explore the nature of language processing with the long-term objective of painting an overall picture of this rather complex, cognitive skill. The candidate's language processing involve general cognitive processes controlled by general cognitive mechanisms. From this view, the candidate proposes three means for achieving her long-term goal. One is to continue developing a framework that she has developed called the Structure Building Framework. The Structure Building Framework identifies and describes a few of the general cognitive processes and mechanisms involved in language that the framework suggests. For example, does information presented in the initial position of a sentence or passage have a privileged position in a comprehender's representation? According to the Structure Building Framework it does, but according to other models of sentence and text processing and representation, such as proposition-based models, it doesn't. A second approach to the candidate's long-term goal involves exploring other complex cognitive skills that presumably draw on the same cognitive processes and mechanisms that language does. On is a first step toward understanding the analogy. This project investigates the acquisition of artificial linguistic languages and artificial musical "languages" that share their structural organization (i.e., syntax). A third approach to the candidate's long-term goal involves exploring the cognitive processes and mechanisms that are disrupted when language is disordered as in aphasia and some cases of schizophrenia. In this pursuit, the candidate is only at the training stage and not yet the research stage. Other components of the candidate's training gaining more knowledge of the structure of language so that she can further discriminate linguistic explanations from general, cognitive ones. In particular, she seeks to become one of the few psycholingustic s who can examine language comprehension cross-linguistically. She also seeks to gain more skill in formal modelling. In particular, connectionist modelling. The Structure Building Framework could be tested by implementing it as a connectionist modelling. The Structure Building Framework could be tested by implementing it as a connectionist system; surely that would complement the experimental tests that have been made of it and that the candidate plans to continue making. Finally, the candidate seeks more training in the area of music cognition so that she can better understand the cognitive and structural analogies between music and language.

According to the Structure Building Framework, the goal of comprehension is to build coherent mental representations or structures. At least three component processes are involved. First comprehenders lay foundations for their mental structures. Next, comprehenders develop mental structure by mapping on new information when that information coheres or relates to previous information. However, when the incoming information is less coherent or related, comprehenders employ a different process: They shift and build a new substructure. Thus, most representations comprise several branching substructures. The building blocks of these mental structures are considered memory nodes. Memory nodes are activated by incoming stimuli. Initial activation forms the foundation of mental structures. Once a foundation is laid, subsequent information is often mapped on because the more coherent the incoming information is with the previous information, the more likely it is to activate the same or connected memory nodes. In addition, once memory nodes are activated, they transmit processing signals to enhance (increase) or suppress (decrease) other nodes' activation. So, once memory nodes are activated, two mechanisms control their level of activation: suppression and enhancement. Memory nodes are enhanced when the information they represent is necessary for further structure building; they are suppressed when the information is no longer as necessary. The goal of the continued funding period is to test further the assumptions and implications of the Structure Building Framework, using two methodological approaches: laboratory-based behavioral experiments and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The behavioral experiments will investigate further the cognitive process of laying a foundation by asking whether the "Advantage of First Mention" extends beyond accessibility to interpretation; the cognitive process of mapping will be investigated further by quantifying the demands of activating the knowledge that guides the mapping process; the cognitive process of shifting will be investigated further by identifying when comprehenders shift and attach new substructures; the cognitive mechanisms of suppression and enhancement will be investigated further by exploring whether two different constructions operate as cataphorical devices in English, and if so, whether the mechanisms of suppression and enhancement enable concepts marked by those cataphoric devices to gain a privileged status in comprehenders' mental structures. The fMRI experiments (block design and event-related) will extend the behavioral experiments by discovering a common neural circuitry underlying general comprehension (of three media), and by discovering how the general cognitive processes and mechanisms of laying a foundation, mapping, suppression, and enhancement are instantiated within the general neural circuit.

The goal of this award period is research/educational enhancement. The investigator will gain expertise and incorporate into her research program the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). She will use this expertise in fMRI to further explore the cognitive processes and mechanisms underlying language comprehension, which she has explored using non-imaging techniques and which she has summarized in a framework she calls the Structure Building Framework. According to this framework, the goal of comprehension is to build coherent mental representations or structures. These structures represent clauses, sentences, paragraphs, passages, and other meaningful units. To build these structures, first, comprehenders lay foundations for their mental structures. Then, comprehenders develop their mental structures by mapping on information, when that incoming information coheres or relates to the previous information. However, if the incoming information is less coherent, comprehenders employ a different process. They shift and initiate a new substructure. The investigator's prior behavioral investigations challenge her to explore more concretely the brain structures that enable the cognitive processes involved in structure building. The significance of this pursuit is to answer both the question of `How do the cognitive processes and mechanisms that underlie language comprehension occur in the brain?` as well as the more traditional question of `Where do the cognitive processes and mechanisms that underlie language comprehension occur in the brain?` Within the realm of language processing, fMRI has been used to investigate language processing, but to only a limited extent. Training researchers who are already skilled at conducting behavioral, cognitive-psychological language comprehension research (such as the investigator) to use more complex, neuro-imaging techniques will allow the field to answer more complex questions about the brain activities that occur during language comprehension. This award will support activities designed to promote the development of a scholarly and institutional leader. The research and training experience will increase the investigator's prominence in the science and engineering community and will enhance her professional contribution by providing her with funding opportunities not ordinarily available through regular research funding mechanisms. Such intensive and state-of-the-art retraining should serve to ensure the vitality of the nation's scientific enterprise. Moreover, in this new area of research (functional brain imaging), women are even less well-represented than they are in the investigator's original area of research (cognitive psychology). By providing the resources for this training and research, the Foundation will be increasing the number of women as full participants in this important and highly contemporary area of science.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this research project is to advance rapidly the current genetic research on autism. I suggest that the existing results of genetic (i.e., genome screen) studies have been less definitive because of the heterogeneity among persons with autistic spectrum disorders. Even when diagnosed according to strict and consistent criteria (e.g., the Autism Diagnostic Inventory), symptom profiles of persons with autism vary greatly, suggesting variability in etiology. Thus, I propose to identify and validate a putative subtype of autism, which I refer to as "developmental verbal dyspraxia." Developmental verbal dyspraxia (DVD) is a motor-speech programming disorder resulting in difficulty coordinating and sequencing the oral-motor movements necessary to produce and combine speech sounds (phonemes) to form syllables, words, phrases, and sentences. I hypothesize that a sizable minority of minimally or nonverbal persons with autism are characterized by developmental verbal dyspraxia. Support for my hypothesis comes from behavioral, genetic, and neuroanatomical evidence. In ongoing research (in collaboration with Hill Goldsmith) I am identifying and validating a DVD subtype of autism by screening all children with autism (under age 18) in a metropolitan area; identifying the members of this group who are also characterized by DVD; selecting an autism control group of children not characterized by DVD and a typically developing control group; collecting extensive behavioral, medical, and developmental histories of all children in these groups; obtaining neuroanatomical (structural MRI) data; and collecting and storing DNA. The goal of the research training for this fellowship is to construct indices of the DVD subtype from the diagnostic instruments that have been used in the previously conducted genome screens (e.g., the ADI and A-DOS) and apply those indices to the existing screen data to identify candidate gene regions for the autism-DVD subtype.

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The primary goal of this application is to promote interdisciplinary research on typical and atypical development, using biological and behavioral tools and techniques, by training highly qualified postdoctoral fellows. We shall target trainees who have received Ph.D.s either in behavioral disciplines, such as Psychology or Communicative Disorders, or in biological disciplines, such as Neuroscience, along with M.D.s from Pediatric disciplines such as Developmental Pediatrics or Child Psychiatry. We propose to train three Ph.D. and two M.D. postdoctoral trainees per year, in three-year traineeship cycles, using an innovative program that provides a rich combination of didactic and intensive research experiences. More specifically, the training program will have four key elements: (a) mechanisms for coordinating and monitoring individualized training; (b) intensive research training experiences; (c) a core curriculum; and (d) a requirement that training experiences result in well-defined products in a timely manner. The intensive research experiences will be designed to achieve the following goals: (a) increase the trainee's knowledge of typical and atypical development; (b) expand the trainee's repertoire of techniques for designing and conducting biological or behavioral research; and (c) enable the trainee to develop a programmatic line of interdisciplinary inquiry. The public health relevance will be the development of a cadre of medical and biobehavioral scientists who possess the requisite skills and knowledge to integrate the study of typical and atypical development. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The primary goal of this application is to promote interdisciplinary research on typical and atypical development, using biological and behavioral tools and techniques, by training highly qualified postdoctoral fellows. We shall target trainees who have received Ph.D.s either in behavioral disciplines, such as Psychology or Communicative Disorders, or in biological disciplines, such as Neuroscience, along with M.D.s from Pediatric disciplines such as Developmental Pediatrics or Child Psychiatry. We propose to train three Ph.D. and two M.D. postdoctoral trainees per year, in three-year traineeship cycles, using an innovative program that provides a rich combination of didactic and intensive research experiences. More specifically, the training program will have four key elements: (a) mechanisms for coordinating and monitoring individualized training; (b) intensive research training experiences; (c) a core curriculum; and (d) a requirement that training experiences result in well-defined products in a timely manner. The intensive research experiences will be designed to achieve the following goals: (a) increase the trainee's knowledge of typical and atypical development; (b) expand the trainee's repertoire of techniques for designing and conducting biological or behavioral research; and (c) enable the trainee to develop a programmatic line of interdisciplinary inquiry. The public health relevance will be the development of a cadre of medical and biobehavioral scientists who possess the requisite skills and knowledge to integrate the study of typical and atypical development. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]