Cognitive and lexical states, structures and flexibility

Speaker: Karine Duvignau & Bruno Gaume (Université de Toulouse)

Date: 26 May 2005

Summary:
We present a research project that links a linguistic/neuro-psycholinguistic approach to the lexical treatment of verbs by normal subjects vs. pathological subjects and a mathematic/computer approach of the lexical organisation of verbs in language dictionaries.
Our goal is to establish that flexibility is a fundamental function in the structuring of lexical knowledge and in the "small networks of hierarchical worlds" that are found in dictionaries, the state of cognitive artifacts.


Using a linguistic and psycholinguistic verbal lexical approach, we attempt to measure the importance of semantic-cognitive flexibility, found in early lexical learning, through a comparative study of the production of "semantic approximations" in different cognitive states:

- during early lexical verb acquisition (child L1)
- in dysphasic children (child L1)
- when lexixcal organisation is relatively stable (healthy adult L1)
- in strong lexical deficiency (child and adult L2)
- in lexical-semantic "degredation" (Alzheimer and semantic dementia)
- in lexical access problems (aphasia)
- in unusually precise lexical competence (Asperger syndrome)
- in high functioning autistics


We hope to confront these data with a mathematical model of lexical verbal organisation created from a dictionary graph (PROX).
If we reach a convergence between human and mathematical treatment of semantic approximations, then the dictionary "small networks of hierarchical worlds" could conquer the state of "cognitive artifacts," which would open up a perspective of new research within the STIC-SHS-SDV interface.


By creating a synergy of these approaches, this project aims to place flexibility in the ranks of linguistic principles and cognitive fundamentals. The confirmation of such a hypothesis would comfort the opposition to a strictly modularistic approach of structural and functional architecture of language in the human brain/mind, insisting on the highly associative and dynamic character of lexical representations in both mental and artifactual lexicon.
Two applications can immediately be examined: contribution to teaching and learning of the verbal lexicon (L1 and L2), contribution to an early detection of Asperger syndrome.

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