Pinker’s Concept of Genetic Double Dissociation

Pinker’s Concept of Genetic Double Dissociation
Introduction to Pinker’s Concept of Genetic Double Dissociation
In the field of neurology, double dissociation is a kind of neuropsychological impairment that involves the malfunctioning of one section of the brain independent of another part of the brain. For instance, if the brain's ability to recognize face gets impaired, but its ability to differentiate face expression, then this impairment is called double dissociation. This neurological impairment is a hereditary phenomenon that can occur in individuals and populations (Parsell, 2010). In psycholinguistics, Steven Pinker is a renowned figure who has extensively researched various linguistic impairment and their root causes. He is one of the proponents of modularity of the brain with specific reference to language modularity: a theoretical proposition that asserts that the human brain has a specific section or module associated with language acquisition. He states that the part of the brain linked with linguistic abilities is capsulated from the rest of the brain and holds a distinction regarding the ability to process information (Pinker, 2015). Thus, according to Pinker, language learning and speaking is a modular phenomenon isolated from other brain cognitive abilities.
Pinker provides several reasoning to substantiate his claim; for instance, he proposes that language and cognitive abilities are two distinct and isolated neurological processes, and the impairment of one entity does not affect the working of the other (1994). According to another scholar, this isolated neurological language module concept directly opposes other popular hypotheses. The Sapir-Wharf hypothesis is one such hypothesis that claims that language and cognition overlap each other, and language acquisition is responsible for shaping our cognition about the world and our perception of the world (Tommerdahl, 2005). However, despite admitting the development of inner speech via language, Pinker thinks this inner speech is nothing but a byproduct of language and has little to do with cognition. Nevertheless, to substantiate his claim further, Steven Pinker has used the examples of various linguistic disorders using several patients with solid language skills but weak cognitive abilities or weak linguistic abilities and stronger cognition.
Based on his study of various linguistic disorders, Pinker holds a strong proposition called the concept of double dissociation. He uses this concept to describe and explain the nature of the problem of people suffering from specific language impairment (SLI). Pinker attempts to verify the existence of brain modularity using SLI and William Syndrome (WS). In his proposition, he states that the malfunctioning of genes related to language acquisition impairs SLI patients' grammatical abilities; conversely, the malfunctioning of genes of cognitive skills impairs WS patients' cognitive abilities, but their language skills remain unharmed (Pinker, 2015). In other words, in patients suffering from WS, the cognitive module remains intact and functioning while the language module is impaired. Subsequently, this disease indicates the existence of a separate "social reasoning" module in the human brain; the ability of...