Neural aspects of pragmatic disorders

Brigitte Stemmer

pp. 561-585

in: Louise Cummings (ed), Research in clinical pragmatics, Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

Pragmatic abnormalities or impairments have been described in a large range of developmental disorders and psychiatric and neurological diseases and conditions. Despite a rich literature, no clear picture has emerged concerning the neural underpinnings of the various aspects of pragmatic behavior. Reasons are manifold and include methodological issues, no conclusive picture of the processes involved in pragmatic behavior and vague concepts of the processes. It is argued that pragmatic behavior is a dynamic concept that emerges through the complex interaction of cognitive and non-cognitive processes. Consequently, the recruitment of neural substrates and neural networks depends on the processes implicated and may change from situation to situation. Atypical pragmatic behavior is the result of malfunctions at various levels of organization and occurs when the neural substrates and networks contributing to the fulfillment of such processes do not operate as required. An argument is made to include small- and large-scale brain networks into research on normal and abnormal pragmatic behavior.