Brain, Vol. 125, No. 1, 215-216,
January 2002
© 2002 Oxford University Press
Book Review |
THE NEUROCOGNITION OF LANGUAGE.
Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
THE NEUROCOGNITION OF LANGUAGE.
By Colin M. Brown and Peter Hagoort.
2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Price £17.99. Pp. 409. ISBN 0-19850-793-3..
Brown and Hagoort’s The Neurocognition of Language is a welcome guide for researchers to the merging fields of neuroscience, linguistics and psycholinguistics. This book encompasses theoretical and technical aspects of the cognitive neuroscience of language, an emerging field that exemplifies the synthesis of neuroscience, linguistics and psycholinguistics. Many of the 25 contributing authors, who come from North America, Europe (Germany, The Netherlands and England) and Russia, are well-known experts in these three fields. The book is divided into four sections, with a total of 12 chapters. Three orthogonal themes underlie the choice of chapter topics; these include the complexity of language, issues in mapping measures of brain activity to language and functional and neuroanatomical variability.
The first section (Chapters 1–3) provides an introduction to the cognitive neuroscience of language, linguistic theory and functional neuroimaging. The chapter on linguistic theory assumes some familiarity with linguistic structure and terminology and may prove difficult reading for the novice. The last chapter in the section is a clear and concise primer on functional neuroimaging techniques that are defined as non-invasive brain mapping approaches and include not only PET and fMRI (functional MRI), but electrophysiology methods as well.
The second section (Chapters 4–6) is devoted to current psycholinguistic models. Each of the three chapters in this section details a ‘blueprint’ for the cognitive architecture of speaking, listening and reading. These chapters provide state-of-the-art reviews of current language models. Although each chapter stands on its own, together the three form a cohesive theoretical foundation for the neuroimaging research discussed in the last two sections of the book. The inclusion of this section early in the book reflects the editors’ view that neuroimaging studies of language should be based on linguistic theory and psycholinguistic models.
The third section (Chapters 7–9) is entitled ‘Neurocognitive architectures of language’ and is concerned with integrating different approaches to language mapping in the brain. The first chapter focuses on neuroimaging studies of single word processing. Results of PET and fMRI studies investigating neural regions associated with the perception and production of spoken and written words are discussed in terms of theoretical processing stages. A series of colour figures provide useful examples of the PET and fMRI results described. The second chapter describes neuropsychological research on the semantic system through studies of individuals with brain lesions. Inclusion of this chapter underscores the importance of lesion-deficit data for constraining interpretations of neuroimaging data and the potential utility of combining both approaches in language mapping studies. The last chapter in this section describes the application of the cognitive neuroscience approach to the study of syntactic processing. This chapter extends current research on single-word processing to the sentence level and demonstrates how event-related potential (ERP) studies of sentence processing can be used to test different parsing models, including the psycholinguistic model of speech production described earlier in Section 2 (Chapter 4).
The fourth and final section (Chapters 10–12) deals with methodological issues in the implementation of neuroimaging techniques. The particular issues discussed are related to functional–anatomical variability and connectivity. Chapter 10 describes variability in the neuroanatomical localization of Broca’s area in the developing and adult brain and the implications for neuroimaging studies of language. Chapter 11 provides an excellent, detailed discussion of statistical techniques used to derive patterns of functional and effective connectivity from neuroimaging data. Linear and non-linear models as well as structural equation modelling are among the techniques discussed, with clear examples of each. The level of technical detail in this chapter may make this somewhat difficult reading for the novice. Chapter 12 provides an excellent primer on the three main electrophysiology methods currently used in mapping language functions. The chapter begins with an introduction to the basic principles of electrophysiology, followed by discussions of the EEG, ERP and MEG methods. The strengths and weakness of each method are clearly described, as well as common interpretive issues, including problems of source localization.
The book achieves a nice balance between theory and methodology and gives equal weight to the study of receptive and expressive language functions. There is somewhat more discussion of syntax than might be expected, perhaps reflecting the particular interests of the editors who also co-authored one of the chapters on syntax. The last two sections of the book are not as internally cohesive as the first two sections. This may reflect the, as yet, incomplete merger of the three disciplines represented.
This timely book provides a useful resource for researchers trained in neuroscience, linguistics or psycholinguistics who are interested in the merger of these three disciplines into a coherent research programme, as exemplified by the newly emerging field of the cognitive neuroscience of language.
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