Abstract
Autists do not speak or when they speak, they repeat the same phrase many times meaninglessly. They say things that look nonsensical and irrelevant to others, because their utterances do not seem to have any connection to the situation in which they are voiced. Autists are unable to understand metaphors, irony, lies, and humor.
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Notes
- 1.
Multiple studies demonstrate this phenomenon.
- 2.
This part of BA37 borders the occipital cortex; it is usually characterized as a transitional area and is phylogenetically older than the nucleus.
- 3.
The “semantic subregion” corresponds to what in this book is referred to as the linguistic functions of the symbolic level in BA37.
- 4.
At the sensory-motor level, there are not yet objects as such, just things, for the construct of an “object” arises from analysis as to the functional meaning of some “thing.” Such analysis begins at the gnostic–praxic level.
- 5.
Despite these facts, most theories of how categories are organized in the brain are reductionistic. For example, the sensory/functional theory explains category-specific deficits being a result of selective damage to noncategorically organized visual or functional semantic systems (Warrington & Shallice, 1984). Another theory claims that because members of a superordinate category share many features in common, the bundles of interrelated properties are differentially distributed in the categories of living and nonliving things (Hills et al. 1995). For example, such categorical distinction as biological versus nonbiological motion is based on the particular types of nonoverlapping features, certain kinds of “stuff” (shape, texture, color, odor, etc.) that distinguish animate and inanimate objects. According to this theory, local damage to a region of semantic space will result in impairment to those categories whose members’ meaning depends on the affected semantic properties. This theory has some similarity with ours, for it considers representation of the category as a combination of interrelated properties (which is the LH processing). However, the discussed above theory remains reductionistic since it defines a category by the physical, sensory properties. Closest to my understanding of categorical representations in the brain is Caramazza and Shelton (1998) model. According to these authors, categorical knowledge has distinct brain organization within which specialized brain networks subserve different categories (specific domains). The authors even allude to the different levels of organization in the brain. Furthermore, criticizing reductionistic theories, Caramazza and Shelton (1998) argue that not only are there specific domains for categories in the brain, but that perceptual systems are sensitive to category distinctions. We can accept this last statement not literally, but in a sense of top–down regulation.
- 6.
The terms categorical classification of the external world and categorical representations used in this book are equivalents of categorical system and of semantic memory, the latter is often used in literature.
- 7.
Similarly, categorical deficits are observed in individuals with mental retardation (concrete thinking), except that in mental retardation the deficit is developmental.
- 8.
In the historical development of the human brain, powerful growth in two areas, corresponding to prefrontal and inferior temporal regions (BA37) in modern man, along with the formation of a massive bundle of connections between these two areas was the turning point toward brain “hominization” (Kochetkova, 1973).
- 9.
An example of a categorization task used in functional imaging studies is when subjects are shown a picture of three cue objects and then must decide whether a fourth (target) object belonged to the same category as the cue objects.
- 10.
In a previous work, two parallel lines in the phylogenesis of language were proposed (1) the articulatory praxic and empirical component of word meaning (gnostic–praxic level), and (2) the phonological code and categorical component of word meaning (symbolic level) (Glezerman, 1986; Glezerman & Balkoski, 1999).
- 11.
As alluded to at the beginning of this chapter, word sound by itself does not mean anything; it is literally a sound code of a word, the code that allows access to word meaning the “other side” of the same coin.
- 12.
Interestingly, in the history of the human brain, intensive growth in the area corresponding to modern man’s BA37 is registered at earlier stages than the development of the specifically human region responsible in modern man for word sound.
- 13.
We will see below how this is very important for our purposes because autists treat objects as forms (appearances), and it is form, not the meaning of the object, that holds emotion for them.
- 14.
This hypothesis was later supported by TMS studies (see the first part of this chapter) and also by imaging studies during memorizing concrete and abstract words. There was activation in the inferotemporal area (BA37) bilaterally with LH superiority in memorizing abstract nouns. When concrete nouns were being memorized, the bordering part of the occipital region was involved as well (Goldenberg, Podreka, Steiner, & Willness, 1987). The meaning of concrete nouns includes empirical and categorical components, whereas in abstract nouns the empirical component is reduced. The difference in localization between abstract and concrete words was attributed to the empirical component being related to the peripheral, temporal–occipital part of the left BA37, and the bordering occipital BA18,19 (Glezerman & Balkoski, 1999).
- 15.
Cortical connectivity is stratified, meaning connections exist between regions that developed together in phylogenesis (see Chap. 1 for details).
- 16.
Patients with lesions in the right inferotemporal cortex misrecognize the objects due to fragmentation of the whole in visual perception (Kock, 1967).
- 17.
Patients with lesions in the left posterior brain who have apraxia do not know what to do with objects: how to strike a match, how to use a spoon, what a needle is for, etc.
- 18.
For example, the supramodal temporal cortex, responsible for the phonological code of words, is historically built upon the auditory cortex, while the supramodal inferotemporal cortex responsible for word meaning is built upon the visual cortex.
- 19.
There were also two control groups in this study: patients with dementia (diffuse, bilateral brain damage) and normal subjects.
- 20.
Findings come from Balonov et al.’s (1979) examinations of depressed patients during recovery after unilateral ECT, when the involved hemisphere is inactivated for a short period of time.
- 21.
To illustrate reorganization of brain functional systems as a response to the primary, local deficit, I will use an example of sensory aphasia and contrast it with autism. Sensory aphasia is caused by a focal lesion in the left temporal region responsible for the phonological code of the word. Its primary deficit, therefore, is in word sound. When word sound becomes unstable, word meaning cannot be decoded as a result, and word comprehension is impaired. However, even though word sound has quickly slipped away, the instant it was heard an object image related to the word’s meaning can still be evoked in the RH. The visual image, without support of word sound, is subject to RH rules and brings to the fore a particular group of associated holistic forms. Any one of a roundabout of images, similar in appearance but different in content, may come forth and push out a word sound. For instance, instead of the word “ditch” a patient may say “plate,” instead of “wall” he might say “sheet,” instead of “suitcase” he might say “well” (examples are taken from Bein, 1961).
Other patients with sensory aphasia may use different “layers” of the RH visual thinking to “compensate” for the primary deficit, such as visual-situational associations or even RH visual-symbolic thinking; in the latter, there is a peculiar narrowing of word meaning where the basic meaning of the word—concept and object reference—is lost, but figurative meaning remains intact. For example, a patient defined the meaning of “pipe” as “peace pipe,” “dwarf” as “pygmean soul,” “sharp” as “unpleasant, sharp tongue, everybody is afraid of it.” Still another patient with sensory aphasia can still rely on his LH, and here the target word would be substituted under the rules of LH cognitive mechanism. For example, the concrete word “notebook” can be replaced by a word in a more abstract category: “stationary.” Another such example is one patient’s answer of “science” instead of “economics” (examples are taken from Bein, 1961).
- 22.
Applying the term premorbid neuropsychological profile to autism, a supposed neurodevelopmental disorder, means the particular individual’s hypothetical brain as it would exist if the autistic disorder were removed.
- 23.
For the autist himself it is not metaphor but his primary experience.
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Glezerman, T.B. (2013). How Autistic Persons Understand Words (Cerebral Organization of Word Meaning and Autism). In: Autism and the Brain. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4112-0_2
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