Making sense of reference

Introduction

The distinction between sense and reference has been foundational in the study of linguistic meaning since Frege’s classic On Sense and Reference (1892). More than a century later, the neural correlates of reference remain opaque.

Background

Meanwhile, in computational psychiatry, a burgeoning field uses computational neural language models (NLMs) to predict psychosis from spontaneous speech. Clear behavioural evidence has emerged that patients with psychosis navigate the semantic space differently when retrieving words and building them into grammatical structures.

This causes shifts in patterns that are detectable through computational semantic similarity and probabilistic metrics.

Proposal

We propose the new concept that:

1. Grammar plays a specific role in mapping concepts onto referents to construct a cognitive map.
2. This cognitive map can be tracked in real time at a millisecond level.
3. It involves a cortical-hippocampal loop.
4. It is a neural mechanism vulnerable in psychosis.

Methodology

Using MEG with optically pumped magnetometers (OPM), we will implement a naturalistic story comprehension paradigm in which the construction of reference through grammar will be tracked and regressed on computational semantic metrics.

Goals

We aim to generate value through a novel sustainable, theoretically and computationally grounded framework for the study of language in psychosis. This will enable a transition to the larger goal of fully exploiting spontaneous speech as a rich and multidimensional data source for clinical practice.