A neurocognitive perspective on language: The declarative/procedural model

Ullman, Michael T.

doi:10.1038/35094573

Cited by 790 publications

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“…This suggests that regular and irregular past tense forms may both be stored, given that retrieving both forms is problematic but recognizing them is not. Fourth, whereas in normally developing children and adults, frequency effects for regular inflected forms are absent, inconsistent or weak (Pinker, 1999;Ullman, 2001aUllman, , 2001c, they are consistently demonstrated in children and adults with SLI, both in past-tense production (Oetting and Horohov, 1997;Ullman and Gopnik, 1994;Ullman and Gopnik, 1999;van der Lely and Ullman, 2001) and in plural production . Fifth, van der Lely and Christian (2000) found that children with SLI produced compounds with regular as well as irregular plurals inside them (e.g., rats-eater and mice-eater).…”

Section: Phonology Children and Adults With Sli Also Exhibit Impairmmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Specifically, it has been posited that important aspects of the difference between these two types of mappings can be captured by the distinction between procedural memory and declarative memory, another well-studied memory system (Ullman, 2001a(Ullman, , 2001cUllman et al, 1997). According to this view -referred to as the Declarative/Procedural (DP) model -idiosyncratic mappings are stored in a memorized "mental lexicon" that depends on declarative memory, whereas the learning and use of rule-governed computations involves a "mental grammar" that depends on procedural memory.…”

Section: Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The DP model posits that each of the two memory systems plays an analogous role in its nonlinguistic and linguistic functions (for additional details and discussion, see Ullman, 2001c, in press-a).…”

Section: Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The medial temporal structures underlie the consolidation (and possibly the retrieval) of new memories. Memories eventually become independent of these structures, and dependent on neocortical regions, particularly in the temporal lobes (Hodges and Patterson, 1997;Martin et al, 2000).The DP model posits that each of the two memory systems plays an analogous role in its nonlinguistic and linguistic functions (for additional details and discussion, see Ullman, 2001c, in press-a).Thus medial temporal lobe structures are predicted to underlie the learning of new words, which eventually depend largely on neocortical regions, particularly in temporal and temporo-parietal regions. Middle and inferior portions of the temporal lobe are posited to be especially important for storing word meanings, whereas superior temporal and temporo-parietal regions are more important for storing word sounds, and possibly also for stored complex morphological and syntactic structures.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, abnormally low over-regularization rates in SLI have been shown in German pluralization (Clahsen et al, 1993), and in the production of complex forms in Japanese (Fukuda and Fukuda, 2001). These deficits suggest that the use of regular morphologically complex forms, which tends to rely on the procedural system (Ullman, 2001c;Ullman et al, 1997), is impaired relative to the use of morphological forms hypothesized to depend on lexical memory. Importantly, although the production of regular past-tense forms is particularly impaired (thus implicating regular morpho-phonology), both regulars and irregulars are produced less successfully by language-impaired children and adults than by control subjects (Ullman and Gopnik, 1994;Ullman and Gopnik, 1999;van der Lely and Ullman, 2001;Vargha-Khadem et al, 1995).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Specific Language Impairment is not Specific to Language: the Procedural Deficit Hypothesis

Ullman

Pierpont

2005

Cortex

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703

751

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Specific Language Impairment (SLI) has been explained by two broad classes of hypotheses, which posit either a deficit specific to grammar, or a non-linguistic processing impairment. Here we advance an alternative perspective. According to the Procedural Deficit Hypothesis (PDH), SLI can be largely explained by the abnormal development of brain structures that constitute the procedural memory system. This system, which is composed of a network of inter-connected structures rooted in frontal/basal-ganglia circuits, subserves the learning and execution of motor and cognitive skills.Crucially, recent evidence also implicates this system in important aspects of grammar. The PDH posits that a significant proportion of individuals with SLI suffer from abnormalities of this brain network, leading to impairments of the linguistic and non-linguistic functions that depend on it. In contrast, functions such as lexical and declarative memory, which depend on other brain structures, are expected to remain largely spared. Evidence from an in-depth retrospective examination of the literature is presented. It is argued that the data support the predictions of the PDH, and particularly implicate Broca's area within frontal cortex, and the caudate nucleus within the basal ganglia. Finally, broader implications are discussed, and predictions for future research are presented. It is argued that the PDH forms the basis of a novel and potentially productive perspective on SLI. INTRODUCTIONSpecific Language Impairment (SLI) is generally defined as a developmental disorder of language in the absence of frank neurological damage, hearing deficits, severe environmental deprivation, or mental retardation (for diagnostic definitions and prevalence of SLI, see Bishop, 1992;Leonard, 1998;Tomblin et al., 1997). Other terms have also been used to label such children, including developmental dysphasia, language impairment, language learning disability, developmental language disorder, delayed speech and deviant language (Leonard, 1998;Ahmed et al., 2001). Several factors have complicated attempts to provide a unified theory of SLI, or even of subgroups of SLI. First, despite the standard use of exclusionary criteria to diagnose SLI, the disorder is clearly not limited to language.Rather the linguistic impairments co-occur with a number of non-linguistic deficits, including impairments of motor skills and working memory, and with other disorders, such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (Hill, 2001;Leonard, 1998;Tirosh and Cohen, 1998). Second, even though SLI must be a consequence of some sort of neural dysfunction, the neural correlates of the disorder have been largely ignored. This potentially valuable information could provide important constraints on explanatory accounts of the disorder. Third, SLI is a classification that is quite heterogeneous (Leonard, 1998;Stromswold, 2000). Surveys document variation within and across subgroups in the particular aspects of language that are affected and in the types of co-occurring no...

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Section: Phonology Children and Adults With Sli Also Exhibit Impairmmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Specific Language Impairment is not Specific to Language: the Procedural Deficit Hypothesis

Ullman

Pierpont

2005

Cortex

Self Cite

703

751

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Language

Saffran¹,

Schwartz²

2003

Handbook of Psychology

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Language is a uniquely human capacity; hence the investigation of language function, as well as language‐brain relationships, requires the use of human subjects. In recent years, the development of methods for monitoring brain activity as people engage in cognitive tasks has provided a means of studying language‐brain relationships in normal individuals. These techniques complement the study of disruptions to language function caused by brain damage—the aphasias—which for some time served as the primary means of investigating the neural substrates of language. The breakdown patterns observed in aphasia are the focus of much of this chapter, which also reviews evidence from studies that examine language activity in the normal brain. The section on semantics describes how the understanding of objects and their names erodes in the condition known as semantic dementia. The section on language comprehension moves through the processing of spoken input from sounds to sentences. Finally, the section on production describes models of word retrieval and sentence production that aim to account for aphasic as well as nonaphasic performance. Within each section, evidence from functional imaging studies is considered alongside the lesion evidence.

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