Language and the brain – lecture series 16910 
by Pia Knoeferle and Friedemann Pulvermüller
Berlin School of Mind and Brain

Time: Monday 1:15-2:45pm; start: 18 April 2016
Venue: Lecture Hall of the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Philippstraße 12, Haus 6, 10115 Berlin

This lecture series is open to MA students at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain as well as for students of linguistics at both HU and FU Berlin. 

Language has been investigated from a range of perspectives, rooted in diverse disciplines such as the humanities and philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. These disciplines have focused on different aspects such as on language as a formal system relating sound to meaning, on the language-related behavior of humans, on how the language system is acquired, and on the ways how language is implemented in the brain. In this course, we will outline linguistic and neurocognitive perspectives on the architecture of language, from phonology to syntax to semantics and pragmatics. We will give an introduction into the major psycholinguistic findings concerning the processing of language, such as the recognition of words, the parsing of sentences, and the computation of the intended meaning. And we will give an overview of what is known about the neural mechanisms underlying language processing in the human brain, also addressing their failure in language disorders. Throughout, students will be familiarized with current research questions in the field of brain language research and with current methods and paradigms in psycho- and neurolinguistics.

A tutorial will complement the course by discussing particular articles that investigate specific aspects of the brain mechanisms of language and a variety of experimental techniques. 

Qualification: There will be an exam in the last session of the course. Students are also expected to participate in online quizzes twice during the semester.

Contact:
Pia Knoeferle pia.knoeferle@hu-berlin.de
Friedemann Pulvermüller friedemann.pulvermuller@fu-berlin.de
Malte Schomers malte.schomers@fu-berlin.de
Lialin Rotem-Stibbe lialinrs@icloud.com
 
Course Program plus key references (18.4.2016):

1.	PK	Intro Ling: From Sounds to Communication 18.4

Traxler MJ. 2011. Introduction to psycholinguistics: Understanding language science. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Chapter 2.

2.	FP	Intro Neuro: Anatomy of the Brain 25.4

Pulvermüller F. 2003. The neuroscience of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapters 2 and 3.

3.	FP/PK	Methods + time course 2.5 

Johnsrude, I. S., Hauk, O. (2011). Neuroimaging. In N. Braisby (Ed.), Cognitive Psychology (pp. 430-467). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pyykkönen-Klauck, P., Crocker, M.W. (in press). Attention and eye movement metrics in visual world eye tracking. In: P. 
Knoeferle, P. Pyykkönen-Klauck, & M. W. Crocker. (eds). Visually situated language comprehension (pp. 67-82). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

4.	FP	Phonetics and phonology 9.5. 

*Fromkin et al. (2011) An introduction to language. Chapters 4 and 5

Galantucci, B., Fowler, C. A., Turvey, M. T. (2006). The motor theory of speech perception reviewed. Psychon Bull Rev, 13(3), 361-377.

5.	PK	Word Structure and Word Recognition 23.5.

Dahan, D., Magnuson, J. (2006), Spoken word recognition. In: M. Traxler & M.A. Gernsbacher. (eds). Handbook of Psychoinguistics (2nd ed., pp. 249-283). London: Academic Press. 

Weber, A., Scharenberg, O. (2012). Models of spoken word recognition, WIREs Cogn Sci, 3:387–401. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1178

6.	FP		Lexical and Semantic Word Categories in Mind and 
				Brain 30.5.

Pulvermüller F. 2013. How neurons make meaning: Brain mechanisms for embodied and abstract-symbolic semantics. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 17:458-470.

Vigliocco, G., Vinson, D. P., Druks, J., Barber, H., Cappa, S. F. 2011. Nouns and verbs in the brain: A review of behavioural, electrophysiological, neuropsychological and imaging studies. Neurosci Biobehav Rev, 35 (3), 407-426.

7.	PK		Semantic interpretation 6.6.

Kutas M., Federmeier K.D. (2000). Electrophysiology reveals semantic memory use in language comprehension. Trends Cogn Sci. 4, 463-470.

Kutas, M., Federmeier, K. D. Event-related brain potential (ERP) studies of sentence processing. In: Gaskell, G. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Psycholinguistics (pp. 385-406). Oxford: OUP.

8.	FP	Neurobiological Mechanisms for Storage vs. 
			Combination 13.6.

Friederici AD. 2002. Towards a neural basis of auditory sentence processing. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 6:78-84.

Pulvermüller F, Cappelle B, Shtyrov Y. 2013. Brain basis of meaning, words, constructions, and grammar. In: Hoffmann T, Trousdale G, eds. Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p 397-416.

9.	PK		Syntactic structure and Sentence Processing 20.6.

Chambers CG, Tanenhaus MK, Magnuson JS. 2004. Actions and affordances in syntactic ambiguity resolution. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 30:687--696.

Knoeferle, P., Habits, B, Crocker, M.W., & Monte, T.F. (2008). Visual scenes trigger immediate syntactic reanalysis: evidence from ERPs during situated spoken comprehension. Cerebral Cortex, 18, 789–795.

10.	FP/PK	Speech Acts and Grice’s approach 27.6.

Hagoort P, Levinson SC. 2014. Neuropragmatics. In:  The Cognitive Neurosciences  Boston, MA: MIT Press p 667-674.

Egorova N, Shtyrov Y, Pulvermüller F. 2016. Brain basis of communicative actions in language. NeuroImage. 125:857-867.

11.	PK	Language Acquisition 4.7. 

Knoeferle P, Guerra E. 2016. Visually Situated Language Comprehension. Language and Linguistics Compass. 10:66-82.

Saxton, M. (2010). Child language: Acquisition and development. London: Sage. Chapter 10.

12.	FP	Language Breakdown and Therapy 11.7.

Blumstein SE. 2016. Psycholinguistic approaches to the study of syndromes and symptoms of aphasia. In: Hickok G, Small SL, eds. Neurobiology of language. Chapter 74. Amsterdam: Elsevier p 923-933.

Pulvermüller F, Mohr B, Taub E. 2016. Constraint-induced aphasia therapy: A neuroscience-centered translational method. In: Hickok G, Small SL, eds. Neurobiology of language. Chapter 82. Amsterdam: Elsevier p 1025-1034.

13.	FP/PK	Final exam 18.7.

Recommended Background Readings:

Fromkin V, Rodman R, Hyams N. 2013. An introduction to language. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning.
Gaskell G, ed. Handbook of Psycholinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kemmerer D. 2014. Cognitive neuroscience of language. New York: Psychology Press.
Knoeferle P, Guerra E. 2016. Visually Situated Language Comprehension. Language and Linguistics Compass. 10:66-82.
Pulvermüller F. 2003. The neuroscience of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Traxler M, Gernsbacher MA, eds. 2011. Handbook of psycholinguistics. New York: Academic Press.
Traxler MJ. 2011. Introduction to psycholinguistics: Understanding language science. New York: John Wiley & Sons.