Language, cognition and neuroscience 

About: Language, cognition and neuroscience is an academic journal published by Taylor & Francis. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Sentence & Psychology. It has an ISSN identifier of 2327-3798. Over the lifetime, 908 publications have been published receiving 13847 citations. The journal is also known as: Lang Cogn Neurosci.

What do we mean by prediction in language comprehension

Abstract: We consider several key aspects of prediction in language comprehension: its computational nature, the representational level(s) at which we predict, whether we use higher-level representations to predictively pre-activate lower level representations, and whether we “commit” in any way to our predictions, beyond pre-activation. We argue that the bulk of behavioural and neural evidence suggests that we predict probabilistically and at multiple levels and grains of representation. We also argue that we can, in principle, use higher-level inferences to predictively pre-activate information at multiple lower representational levels. We suggest that the degree and level of predictive pre-activation might be a function of its expected utility, which, in turn, may depend on comprehenders’ goals and their estimates of the relative reliability of their prior knowledge and the bottom-up input. Finally, we argue that all these properties of language understanding can be naturally explained and productively e...

A control process model of code-switching

Abstract: Code-switching (CS) is central to many bilingual communities and, though linguistic and sociolinguistic research has characterised different types of code-switches (alternations, insertions, dense CS), the cognitive control processes (CPs) that mediate them are not well understood. A key issue is how during CS speakers produce the right words in the right order. In speech, serial order emerges from a speech plan in which items are represented in parallel. We propose that entry into the mechanism for speech planning (a competitive queuing mechanism) is governed by CPs best suited to the particular types of code-switches. Language task schemas external to the language network govern access. In CS, they are coordinated cooperatively and operate in a coupled or in an open control mode. The former permits alternations and insertions whereas the latter is required for dense CS. We explore predictions of this CP model and its implications for CS research.

The revolution will not be controlled: natural stimuli in speech neuroscience

Abstract: Humans have a unique ability to produce and consume rich, complex, and varied language in order to communicate ideas to one another. Still, outside of natural reading, the most common methods for studying how our brains process speech or understand language use only isolated words or simple sentences. Recent studies have upset this status quo by employing complex natural stimuli and measuring how the brain responds to language as it is used. In this article we argue that natural stimuli offer many advantages over simplified, controlled stimuli for studying how language is processed by the brain. Furthermore, the downsides of using natural language stimuli can be mitigated using modern statistical and computational techniques.

What is embodied about cognition

Abstract: It is currently debated whether the meanings of words and objects are represented, in whole or in part, in a modality-specific format-the embodied cognition hypothesis. I argue that the embodied/disembodied cognition debate is either largely resolved in favor of the view that concepts are represented in an amodal format, or at a point where the embodied and disembodied approaches are no longer coherently distinct theories. This merits reconsideration of what the available evidence can tell us about the structure of the conceptual system. We know that the conceptual system engages, online, with sensory and motor content. This frames a new question: How is it that the human conceptual system is able to disengage from the sensorimotor system? Answering this question would say something about how the human mind is able to detach from the present and extrapolate from finite experience to hypothetical states of how the world could be. It is the independence of thought from perception and action that makes human cognition special-and that independence is guaranteed by the representational distinction between concepts and sensorimotor representations.

Is prediction necessary to understand language? Probably not.

Abstract: Some recent theoretical accounts in the cognitive sciences suggest that prediction is necessary to understand language. Here we evaluate this proposal. We consider arguments that prediction provides a unified theoretical principle of the human mind and that it pervades cortical function. We discuss whether evidence of human abilities to detect statistical regularities is necessarily evidence for predictive processing and evaluate suggestions that prediction is necessary for language learning. We point out that not all language users appear to predict language and that suboptimal input makes prediction often very challenging. Prediction, moreover, is strongly context-dependent and impeded by resource limitations. We also argue that it may be problematic that most experimental evidence for predictive language processing comes from “prediction-encouraging” experimental set-ups. We conclude that languages can be learned and understood in the absence of prediction. Claims that all language processing i...