Books on the topic 'Brain language processing'

A unique overview of the human language faculty at all levels of organization. Language is not only one of the most complex cognitive functions that we command, it is also the aspect of the mind that makes us uniquely human. Research suggests that the human brain exhibits a language readiness not found in the brains of other species. This volume brings together contributions from a range of fields to examine humans' language capacity from multiple perspectives, analyzing it at genetic, neurobiological, psychological, and linguistic levels. In recent decades, advances in computational modeling, neuroimaging, and genetic sequencing have made possible new approaches to the study of language, and the contributors draw on these developments. The book examines cognitive architectures, investigating the functional organization of the major language skills; learning and development trajectories, summarizing the current understanding of the steps and neurocognitive mechanisms in language processing; evolutionary and other preconditions for communication by means of natural language; computational tools for modeling language; cognitive neuroscientific methods that allow observations of the human brain in action, including fMRI, EEG/MEG, and others; the neural infrastructure of language capacity; the genome's role in building and maintaining the language-ready brain; and insights from studying such language-relevant behaviors in nonhuman animals as birdsong and primate vocalization. Section editorsChristian F. Beckmann, Carel ten Cate, Simon E. Fisher, Peter Hagoort, Evan Kidd, Stephen C. Levinson, James M. McQueen, Antje S. Meyer, David Poeppel, Caroline F. Rowland, Constance Scharff, Ivan Toni, Willem Zuidema

This article presents the evidence for links between music and language. The focus is on perceptual processes, and on links between mechanisms involved in the processing of instrumental music and of ordinary, day-to- day language. Music and language may have a number of common processes that act on distinct types of information, e.g. on musical melodies vs. linguistic intonation contours, or on chord progressions vs. sequences of words. Thus, the distinction between the domain specificity of information vs. the generality of processing is an essential conceptual tool for research that examines the relationship between music and other cognitive domains.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is becoming an increasingly important tool for investigating the neurological basis of language. This article reviews the history of language studies that span a range of TMS methodologies. TMS offers a powerful tool for investigating the effects of brain damage. It answers questions of recovery mechanisms and methods to improve outcomes. In language studies, the most commonly used form of TMS is to generate ‘virtual patients’ by temporarily disrupting cortical processing. This article explains how TMS studies not only confirm but also clarify the specific regional contributions to semantic and phonological processing. There has been little work with regard to the role of TMS in the area of neurobiology of reading and reading disorders. The number of existing TMS techniques have not been applied to language, despite their obvious potential but this field is bound to grow in the field of language research.

Conduction aphasia is a syndrome characterized by impaired repetition in the context of relatively preserved auditory comprehension and fluent speech. The classical conceptualization of conduction aphasia as a disconnection syndrome has been undermined in recent years. Nevertheless, this diagnosis delineates a small subset of individuals with aphasia who have many common cognitive and anatomical characteristics. Conduction aphasia is associated with damage to a relatively narrow and well-defined group of left hemisphere brain structures, which may include the posterior superior temporal lobe, the inferior parietal lobe, and the insula. According to current cognitive neuropsychological frameworks, an impairment in phonological planning for speech production is the common underlying cognitive dysfunction in the majority of cases, which may sometimes be accompanied by an analogous impairment in receptive phonology. Other common features, such as sentence repetition problems and reduced short-term memory span, may be a secondary consequence of the primary phonological impairment. Current approaches to the treatment of conduction aphasia target the underlying impairment in phonological planning. It is argued that the diagnosis of conduction aphasia can be a useful first step toward understanding a person’s language difficulties and planning effective treatment interventions.

This essay summarizes the findings of studies investigating aspects of linguistic pragmatic behaviour and the brain correlates underlying such behaviour. Although pragmatics is a large field, most brain-oriented studies have focused on specific aspects of linguistic pragmatics such as structural discourse and figurative language. Research indicates that linguistic pragmatic behaviour relies on brain correlates that are routinely activated during word and sentence processing (the default language network). Although no agreement has yet been reached concerning questions such as whether these correlates are qualitatively and/or quantitatively different, whether additional brain areas/networks are implicated, and, if so, what these are, some concrete suggestions have emerged. At a more general level, there is consensus that the classical standard pragmatic model is not supported by most neuroimaging studies and that the right-hemisphere hypothesis on figurative language processing needs revision. The essay ends with some speculations on interpreting pragmatic behaviour within a microgenetic framework.

Although mixed transcortical aphasia (MTA) is a rare syndrome, it constitutes an interesting case for modern neuroanatomically driven language models. This is because its existence may be seen as congruent with the assumption of an independently operating “dorsal stream” in language processing. Predicted by the earliest models of language processing in the brain, the syndrome also pushes the boundaries of neurolinguistic model building because its symptoms arise from an interplay between partially preserved linguistic functions and partially disrupted amodal higher-order cognitive control mechanisms. In summarizing 15 case reports of persons with MTA, this chapter provides details about neurobiological underpinnings, performance during standard language assessments, and speech characteristics of persons diagnosed as having MTA. The chapter raises critical issues, such as the question of how to operationalize “spared repetition,” and the difficulty of clearly differentiating between volitional repetition and nonvolitional echolalia. Data on the evolution of the syndrome are included, and assessment as well as treatment of MTA are discussed.

Andy Clark is a leading philosopher and cognitive scientist. The fruits of his work have been diverse and lasting. They have had an extraordinary impact throughout philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and robotics. The extended mind hypothesis, the power of parallel distributed processing, the role of language in opening up novel paths for thinking, the flexible interface between biological minds and artificial technologies, the significance of representation in explanations of intelligent behaviour, the promise of the predictive processing framework to unify the cognitive sciences: these are just some of the ideas explored in Clark’s work that have been picked up by many researchers and that have been contributing to intense debate across the sciences of mind and brain. This volume provides the first interdisciplinary, critical engagement with Clark’s work; it includes contributions of authors from several disciplines, offering a fresh perspective on key questions in the sciences of mind and brain.

This book is the first dedicated to linguistic parsing—the processing of natural language according to the rules of a formal grammar—in the minimalist framework. While the Minimalist Program has been at the forefront of generative grammar for several decades, it often remains inaccessible to computer scientists and others in adjacent fields. In particular, minimalism reveals a surprising paradox: human language is simpler than we thought, and yet it cannot be processed by the machinery used by computer scientists. In this volume, experts in the field show how to resolve this apparent paradox, and how to turn Chomsky’s abstract theories into working computer programs that can process sentences or make predictions about the time course of brain activity when dealing with language. The book will appeal to graduate students and researchers in formal syntax, computational linguistics, psycholinguistics, and computer science.

Hearing loss is devastating because it prevents communication through verbal language and thereby produces social isolation. The experience of hearing loss or deafness is the most common sensory deficit. The experience of affected individuals is highly variable because it depends on age of onset and treatment efficacy, among many factors. The roles of the external and middle ears in conduction and of the internal ear in sensorineural processing are used as a framework for understanding common forms of hearing loss. The contributions of inner and outer hair cells to cochlear function are detailed. How cochlear amplification results from the actions of prestin in outer hair cells is explained. The roles of age, noise, genetic background, and environmental factors in presbyacusis are considered. Approaches to hearing loss, including cochlear implants and sign language, are discussed. Finally, the brain regions involved in speech production and comprehension are detailed.

Registers of language are cultural templates, normatively constituting the situation types that make up a culture, and yet reciprocally determined by the situation’s linguistic requirements. This chapter proposes that a register such as prayer has typical psychological effects within the mind/brain of its users. These make it also a cognitive register, a linguistically enabled and shaped way of thinking and feeling. This process is analysed using cognitive pragmatics, more specifically relevance theory. Processing petitionary prayer can produce specific psychological effects. It is proposed that the petitions are not directive speech acts, but tools for learning. Petitionary prayer also shapes affectivity and motivation. This is explored using Panksepp’s concept of the SEEKING system. The mind-brain of one who prays is trained into habits of understanding and feeling otherwise unavailable. By bringing together these two approaches, the sociological and the psychological, the essay investigates how a cultural linguistic practice shapes religious cognition.

The fundamental goal of the study of sociolinguistic cognition is to characterize the computational stages and cognitive representations underlying the perception and production of sociolinguistic variation. This chapter discusses psycholinguistic approaches in four sections. The first section discusses different methods for examining how dialectal variation is represented, perceived, and learned. The second section reviews studies investigating the role of sociolinguistic stereotypes in speech processing. The third section explores the attitudinal aspects of language variation by presenting two recent studies using innovative variations of the matched-guise technique. It concludes by introducing the implicit association test, which may be able to address some of the limitations of alternative methods. The fourth section reports on studies that use eye tracking and event-related brain potentials to investigate sociolinguistic cognition.

Reference, the ability to refer to and pick out entities, is essential to human language and thought/cognition. The chapters in this volume attempt to provide a state of the art overview of this ability. The book is divided into two sections. The chapters in Part I, Foundations, are concerned with basic questions related to different types of referring expression and their interpretation. They address questions about the role of the speaker (including speaker intentions) and of the addressee, as well as the contribution of (the semantics of) the linguistic forms themselves, in establishing reference. They are also concerned with the nature of such concepts as definite and indefinite reference and specificity and the conditions under which reference may fail. The chapters in Part II, Implications and Applications, address questions about the acquisition of reference by children, and the processing of reference in the brain (neurolinguistics, psycholinguistics) as well as by machines, including robots (computational linguistics).

For more than 2000 years Greek philosophers have thought about the puzzling introspectively assessed dichotomy between our physical bodies and our seemingly non-physical minds. How is it that we can think highly abstract thoughts, seemingly fully detached from actual, physical reality? Despite the obvious interactions between mind and body (we get tired, we are hungry, we stay up late despite being tired, etc.), until today it remains puzzling how our mind controls our body, and vice versa, how our body shapes our mind. Despite a big movement towards embodied cognitive science over the last 20 years or so, introductory books with a functional and computational perspective on how human thought and language capabilities may actually have come about – and are coming about over and over again – are missing. This book fills that gap. Starting with a historical background on traditional cognitive science and resulting fundamental challenges that have not been resolved, embodied cognitive science is introduced and its implications for how human minds have come and continue to come into being are detailed. In particular, the book shows that evolution has produced biological bodies that provide “morphologically intelligent” structures, which foster the development of suitable behavioral and cognitive capabilities. While these capabilities can be modified and optimized given positive and negative reward as feedback, to reach abstract cognitive capabilities, evolution has furthermore produced particular anticipatory control-oriented mechanisms, which cause the development of particular types of predictive encodings, modularizations, and abstractions. Coupled with an embodied motivational system, versatile, goal-directed, self-motivated behavior, learning becomes possible. These lines of thought are introduced and detailed from interdisciplinary, evolutionary, ontogenetic, reinforcement learning, and anticipatory predictive encoding perspectives in the first part of the book. A short excursus then provides an introduction to neuroscience, including general knowledge about brain anatomy, and basic neural and brain functionality, as well as the main research methodologies. With reference to this knowledge, the subsequent chapters then focus on how the human brain manages to develop abstract thought and language. Sensory systems, motor systems, and their predictive, control-oriented interactions are detailed from a functional and computational perspective. Bayesian information processing is introduced along these lines as are generative models. Moreover, it is shown how particular modularizations can develop. When control and attention come into play, these structures develop also dependent on the available motor capabilities. Vice versa, the development of more versatile motor capabilities depends on structural development. Event-oriented abstractions enable conceptualizations and behavioral compositions, paving the path towards abstract thought and language. Also evolutionary drives towards social interactions play a crucial role. Based on the developing sensorimotor- and socially-grounded structures, the human mind becomes language ready. The development of language in each human child then further facilitates the self-motivated generation of abstract, compositional, highly flexible thought about the present, past, and future, as well as about others. In conclusion, the book gives an overview over how the human mind comes into being – sketching out a developmental pathway towards the mastery of abstract and reflective thought, while detailing the critical body and neural functionalities, and computational mechanisms, which enable this development.

The aim of this book is to provide the clinician with a comprehensive and clinical relevant survey of emerging concepts on the organization and function of the nervous system and neurologic disease mechanisms, at the molecular, cellular, and system levels. The content of is based on the review of information obtained from recent advances in genetic, molecular, and cell biology techniques; electrophysiological recordings; brain mapping; and mouse models, emphasizing the clinical and possible therapeutic implications. Many chapters of this book contain information that will be relevant not only to clinical neurologists but also to psychiatrists and physical therapists. The scope includes the mechanisms and abnormalities of DNA/RNA metabolism, proteostasis, vesicular biogenesis, and axonal transport and mechanisms of neurodegeneration; the role of the mitochondria in cell function and death mechanisms; ion channels, neurotransmission and mechanisms of channelopathies and synaptopathies; the functions of astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and microglia and their involvement in disease; the local circuits and synaptic interactions at the level of the cerebral cortex, thalamus, basal ganglia, cerebellum, brainstem, and spinal cord transmission regulating sensory processing, behavioral state, and motor functions; the peripheral and central mechanisms of pain and homeostasis; and networks involved in emotion, memory, language, and executive function.

The monograph reflects the problems of Russian psycholinguistics from the moment of its inception in Russia to the present day and presents its main directions that are currently developing. In addition, theoretical developments and practical results obtained in the framework of different directions and research centers are described in a concise form. The task of the book is to reflect, as far as it is possible in one edition, firstly, the history of the formation of Russian psycholinguistics; secondly, its methodology and developed methods; thirdly, the results obtained in different research centers and directions in different regions of Russia; fourthly, to outline the main directions of the further development of Russian psycholinguistics. There is no doubt that in the theoretical, methodological and applied aspects, the main problems and the results of their development by Russian psycholinguistics have no analogues in world linguistics and psycholinguistics, or are represented by completely original concepts and methods. We have tried to show this uniqueness of the problematics and the methodological equipment of Russian psycholinguistics in this book. The main role in the formation of Russian psycholinguistics was played by the Moscow psycholinguistic school of A.A. Leontyev. It still defines the main directions of Russian psycholinguistics. Russian psycholinguistics (the theory of speech activity - TSA) is based on the achievements of Russian psychology: a cultural-historical approach to the analysis of mental phenomena L.S. Vygotsky and the system-activity approach of A.N. Leontyev. Moscow is the most "psycholinguistic region" of Russia - INL RAS, Moscow State University, Moscow State Linguistic University, RUDN, Moscow State Pedagogical University, Moscow State Pedagogical University, Sechenov University, Moscow State University and other Moscow universities. Saint Petersburg psycholinguists have significant achievements, especially in the study of neurolinguistic problems, ontolinguistics. The most important feature of Russian psycholinguistics is the widespread development of psycholinguistics in the regions, the emergence of recognized psycholinguistic research centers - St. Petersburg, Tver, Saratov, Perm, Ufa, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Voronezh, Yekaterinburg, Kursk, Chelyabinsk; psycholinguistics is represented in Cherepovets, Ivanovo, Volgograd, Vyatka, Kaluga, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Vladivostok, Abakan, Maikop, Barnaul, Ulan-Ude, Yakutsk, Syktyvkar, Armavir and other cities; in Belarus - Minsk, in Ukraine - Lvov, Chernivtsi, Kharkov, in the DPR - Donetsk, in Kazakhstan - Alma-Ata, Chimkent. Our researchers work in Bulgaria, Hungary, Vietnam, China, France, Switzerland. There are Russian psycholinguists in Canada, USA, Israel, Austria and a number of other countries. All scientists from these regions and countries have contributed to the development of Russian psycholinguistics, to the development of psycholinguistic theory and methods of psycholinguistic research. Their participation has not been forgotten. We tried to present the main Russian psycholinguists in the Appendix - in the sections "Scientometrics", "Monographs and Manuals" and "Dissertations", even if there is no information about them in the Electronic Library and RSCI. The principles of including scientists in the scientometric list are presented in the Appendix. Our analysis of the content of the resulting monograph on psycholinguistic research in Russia allows us to draw preliminary conclusions about some of the distinctive features of Russian psycholinguistics: 1. cultural-historical approach to the analysis of mental phenomena of L.S.Vygotsky and the system-activity approach of A.N. Leontiev as methodological basis of Russian psycholinguistics; 2. theoretical nature of psycholinguistic research as a characteristic feature of Russian psycholinguistics. Our psycholinguistics has always built a general theory of the generation and perception of speech, mental vocabulary, linked specific research with the problems of ontogenesis, the relationship between language and thinking; 3. psycholinguistic studies of speech communication as an important subject of psycholinguistics; 4. attention to the psycholinguistic analysis of the text and the development of methods for such analysis; 5. active research into the ontogenesis of linguistic ability; 6. investigation of linguistic consciousness as one of the important subjects of psycholinguistics; 7. understanding the need to create associative dictionaries of different types as the most important practical task of psycholinguistics; 8. widespread use of psycholinguistic methods for applied purposes, active development of applied psycholinguistics. The review of the main directions of development of Russian psycholinguistics, carried out in this monograph, clearly shows that the direction associated with the study of linguistic consciousness is currently being most intensively developed in modern Russian psycholinguistics. As the practice of many years of psycholinguistic research in our country shows, the subject of study of psycholinguists is precisely linguistic consciousness - this is a part of human consciousness that is responsible for generating, understanding speech and keeping language in consciousness. Associative experiments are the core of most psycholinguistic techniques and are important both theoretically and practically. The following main areas of practical application of the results of associative experiments can be outlined. 1. Education. Associative experiments are the basis for constructing Mind Maps, one of the most promising tools for systematizing knowledge, assessing the quality, volume and nature of declarative knowledge (and using special techniques and skills). Methods based on smart maps are already widely used in teaching foreign languages, fast and deep immersion in various subject areas. 2. Information search, search optimization. The results of associative experiments can significantly improve the quality of information retrieval, its efficiency, as well as adaptability for a specific person (social group). When promoting sites (promoting them in search results), an associative experiment allows you to increase and improve the quality of the audience reached. 3. Translation studies, translation automation. An associative experiment can significantly improve the quality of translation, take into account intercultural and other social characteristics of native speakers. 4. Computational linguistics and automatic word processing. The results of associative experiments make it possible to reveal the features of a person's linguistic consciousness and contribute to the development of automatic text processing systems in a wide range of applications of natural language interfaces of computer programs and robotic solutions. 5. Advertising. The use of data on associations for specific words, slogans and texts allows you to predict and improve advertising texts. 6. Social relationships. The analysis of texts using the data of associative experiments makes it possible to assess the tonality of messages (negative / positive moods, aggression and other characteristics) based on user comments on the Internet and social networks, in the press in various projections (by individuals, events, organizations, etc.) from various social angles, to diagnose the formation of extremist ideas. 7. Content control and protection of personal data. Associative experiments improve the quality of content detection and filtering by identifying associative fields in areas subject to age restrictions, personal information, tobacco and alcohol advertising, incitement to ethnic hatred, etc. 8. Gender and individual differences. The data of associative experiments can be used to compare the reactions (and, in general, other features of thinking) between men and women, different social and age groups, representatives of different regions. The directions for the further development of Russian psycholinguistics from the standpoint of the current state of psycholinguistic science in the country are seen by us, first of all:  in the development of research in various areas of linguistic consciousness, which will contribute to the development of an important concept of speech as a verbal model of non-linguistic consciousness, in which knowledge revealed by social practice and assigned by each member of society during its inculturation is consolidated for society and on its behalf;  in the expansion of the problematics, which is formed under the influence of the growing intercultural communication in the world community, which inevitably involves the speech behavior of natural and artificial bilinguals in the new object area of psycholinguistics;  in using the capabilities of national linguistic corpora in the interests of researchers studying the functioning of non-linguistic and linguistic consciousness in speech processes;  in expanding research on the semantic perception of multimodal texts, the scope of which has greatly expanded in connection with the spread of the Internet as a means of communication in the life of modern society;  in the inclusion of the problems of professional communication and professional activity in the object area of psycholinguistics in connection with the introduction of information technologies into public practice, entailing the emergence of new professions and new features of the professional ethos;  in the further development of the theory of the mental lexicon (identifying the role of different types of knowledge in its formation and functioning, the role of the word as a unit of the mental lexicon in the formation of the image of the world, as well as the role of the natural / internal metalanguage and its specificity in speech activity);  in the broad development of associative lexicography, which will meet the most diverse needs of society and cognitive sciences. The development of associative lexicography may lead to the emergence of such disciplines as associative typology, associative variantology, associative axiology;  in expanding the spheres of applied use of psycholinguistics in social sciences, sociology, semasiology, lexicography, in the study of the brain, linguodidactics, medicine, etc. This book is a kind of summarizing result of the development of Russian psycholinguistics today. Each section provides a bibliography of studies on the relevant issue. The Appendix contains the scientometrics of leading Russian psycholinguists, basic monographs, psycholinguistic textbooks and dissertations defended in psycholinguistics. The content of the publications presented here is convincing evidence of the relevance of psycholinguistic topics and the effectiveness of the development of psycholinguistic problems in Russia.