Neuroscience Training Program, University of Iowa.
J Exp Psychol Gen. 2013 Nov;142(4):1346-54. doi: 10.1037/a0034026. Epub 2013 Aug 12.
A growing body of work suggests the hippocampus contributes to a variety of cognitive domains beyond its traditional role in memory. We propose that the hippocampus, in its capacity for relational binding, representational flexibility, and online maintenance and integration of multimodal relational representations, is a key contributor to language processing. Here we test the hypothesis that the online interpretation of pronouns is hippocampus-dependent. We combined eye tracking with neuropsychological methods, where participants (4 patients with bilateral hippocampal damage and severe declarative memory impairment, 4 patients with ventromedial prefrontal cortex [vmPFC] damage, and healthy comparison participants) viewed a scene while listening to short dialogues introducing 2 characters; for example, Melissa is playing violin for Debbie/Danny as the sun is shining overhead. She is wearing a blue/purple dress. Consistent with previous work, analysis of eye gaze showed that younger and older healthy comparison participants and the vmPFC patients rapidly identified the intended referent of the pronoun when gender uniquely identified the referent, and when it did not, they showed a preference to interpret the pronoun as referring to the first-mentioned character. By contrast, hippocampal patients, while exhibiting a similar gender effect, exhibited significant disruptions in their ability to use information about which character had been mentioned first to interpret the pronoun. This finding suggests that the hippocampus plays a role in maintaining and integrating information even over a very short discourse history. These observed disruptions in referential processing demonstrate how promiscuously the hallmark processing features of the hippocampus are used in service of a variety of cognitive domains including language.
越来越多的研究表明，海马体除了在记忆方面具有传统作用外，还对各种认知领域有贡献。我们提出，海马体在其关系绑定、表示灵活性以及在线维护和整合多模态关系表示方面的能力，是语言处理的关键贡献者。在这里，我们测试了在线代词解释依赖于海马体的假设。我们结合了眼动追踪和神经心理学方法，让参与者（4 名双侧海马体损伤和严重陈述性记忆障碍的患者、4 名腹内侧前额叶皮层 [vmPFC] 损伤的患者和健康对照组参与者）在观看场景的同时听简短的对话，介绍 2 个角色；例如，梅丽莎正在为戴比/丹尼演奏小提琴，而太阳正在头顶照耀。她穿着蓝色/紫色的连衣裙。与之前的工作一致，眼动分析表明，年轻和年长的健康对照组参与者和 vmPFC 患者在性别唯一确定指代词的情况下，能够快速识别代词的预期指代词，而在没有这种情况时，他们更倾向于将代词解释为指代第一个提到的角色。相比之下，海马体患者虽然表现出类似的性别效应，但在使用有关哪个角色先被提及的信息来解释代词方面表现出明显的障碍。这一发现表明，海马体在维持和整合信息方面发挥作用，即使是在非常短的话语历史中也是如此。这些在指代处理方面的观察到的障碍表明，海马体的标志性处理特征在服务于各种认知领域（包括语言）时是多么的灵活多变。
