Language and the Brain - Detailseite

Language has been investigated from a range of perspectives. Linguists have described it as a formal system focusing on levels that range from phonology to syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Both linguists and psychologists worked on models focusing on the time course of linguistic processing, so that these psycholinguistic models could be tested in behavioral experiments. Most recently, neuro- and cognitive scientists have attempted to spell out the brain mechanisms of language in terms of neuronal structure and function. These efforts are founded in neuroscience data about the brain loci that activate when specific linguistic operations occur, the time course of their activation and the effects of specific lesions.

The lecture series will provide a broad introduction into these linguistic, psycholinguistic and neurolinguistics research streams and highlight a range of cutting-edge behavioral and neuroscience findings addressing a broad range of linguistic issues, including, for example, the recognition of words, the parsing of sentences, the computation of the meaning and of the communicative function of utterances. Language development and language disorders caused by disease of the brain will also be in the focus. To accommodate language processing, psycho- and neurolinguists make use of theoretical and computational models. The modeling approaches discussed range from theoretical models of the language system to language processing to (neuro-)computationally implemented models. The experimental approaches under discussion will range from behavioral (reaction time studies, eye tracking) to neuroimaging methods (EEG, MEG, fMRI, NIRS) and neuropsychological ones (patient studies, TMS, tDCS).

Readings (course preparation):

Knoeferle, P., & Guerra, E. (2016). Visually situated language comprehension. Linguistics and Language Compass, 10(2), 66–82. doi: 10.1111/lnc3.12177

Knoeferle, P. (2021). Grounding language processing: The added value of specifying linguistic/compositional representations and processes. Journal of Cognition, 4, 1-14, doi: 10.5334/joc.155.

Pulvermüller, F. (2018). Neural reuse of action perception circuits for language, concepts and communication. Progress in Neurobiology, 160, 1-44. doi: 10.1016/j.pneurobio.2017.07.001

Pulvermüller, F., Tomasello, R., Henningsen-Schomers, M. R., & Wennekers, T. (2021). Biological constraints on neural network models of cognitive function. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 22(8), 488-502. doi: 10.1038/s41583-021-00473-5

Complementing the lecture series, a tutorial will be offered jointly by Johanna Knechtges, research assistant at the Brain Language Laboratory of the Freie Universität, and Li Dandan, PhD candidate in the SFB 1412 “Register”. The tutorial will deepen the lecture contents, in part by discussing relevant articles with theoretical and experimental focus. Together with the lectures, the tutorial will familiarize students with current research in the field of language and the brain.

The course takes place at two venues simultaneously: Prof. Pulvermüller will teach his sessions in person in the seminar room at Freie Universität (FU, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, room KL 32/123) and they will be streamed at the lecture hall of Bernstein Center. Prof. Knoeferle will teach her sessions in person at the lecture hall of Bernstein Center and students at FU can follow them via live stream.