Article

During conversation, interactants draw on their shared communicative context and
history ("common ground") to help decide what to say next, tailoring utterances
based on their knowledge of what the listener knows. The use of common ground
draws on an understanding of the thoughts and feelings of others to create and
update a model of what is known by the other person, employing cognitive
processes such as theory of mind. We tested the hypothesis that the ventromedial
prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), a neural region involved in processing and
interpreting social and emotional information, would be critical for the
development and use of common ground. We studied seven patients with bilateral
vmPFC damage and seven age-, sex-, and education-matched healthy comparison
participants, each interacting with a familiar partner. Across 24 trials,
participants verbally directed their partners how to arrange a set of 12 abstract
tangram cards. Our hypothesis was not supported: the vmPFC and healthy comparison
groups showed similar development and use of common ground, evident in reduction
in time and words used to describe the cards, similar increases in the use of
definite references (e.g., the horse), and comparable use of verbal play (playful
language) in their interactions. These results argue against the idea that the
vmPFC is critical for the development and use of common ground in social
interaction. We propose that a cognitive and neuroanatomical bifurcation in
theory of mind processes may explain this outcome. The vmPFC may be important for
affective theory of mind (the ability to understand another's feelings); however,
the development and use of common ground in social interaction may place higher
demands on the ability to understand another's knowledge, or cognitive theory of
mind, which may not require the vmPFC.
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Langue : ANGLAIS