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Updated: Jul 8, 2025

Using the Visual World Paradigm to Study Sentence Comprehension in Mandarin-Speaking Children with Autism
Published on: October 3, 2018
Pragmatic language comprehension: Role of theory of mind, executive functions, and the prefrontal cortex
Riadh Ouerchefani1, Naoufel Ouerchefani2, Mohamed Riadh Ben Rejeb3
1University of Tunis El Manar, High Institute of Human Sciences, Department of Psychology, 26 Boulevard Darghouth Pacha, Tunis, Tunisia; Univ Angers, Université de Nantes, LPPL, SFR Confluences, F-49000 Angers, France.
Abstract:
The specific contribution of focal damage of the prefrontal cortex and the cognitive mechanisms accounting for communicative-pragmatic disorders remains unclear. The objective of the current study was to investigate the impact of focal prefrontal cortex damage on the ability to understand indirect speech or hints and to identify the prefrontal neural mechanisms involved. We also examined the underlying cognitive mechanisms of disorders of indirect speech understanding particularly theory of mind and executive functions. Thirty patients with focal prefrontal cortex damage and 30 control subjects were compared on their performances on the Hinting task assessing pragmatic language skills, the "Faux-Pas" task and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes task assessing Theory of Mind and a battery of executive tasks. Patients were significantly impaired compared with control subjects on all these abilities. Both deficits of executive functions and theory of mind were able to predict impaired ability of patients in understanding non-literal meanings on the Hinting task. Finally, using voxel-based lesion analysis we identified a partially shared neural prefrontal network involved in all these abilities centered on the dorsomedial and ventral regions of the prefrontal cortex.
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