Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience of Language
The main goal of our research program is to study the cognitive and neural architectures of normal language comprehension.
Language is a central part of our everyday life. Yet comprehending spoken and written language is extremely complex, being subserved by complex mental processes and supported by myriad areas in the brain. The main goal of our research program is to study the cognitive and neural architectures of normal language comprehension. Our research is directed at three related goals: (1) to understand how humans represent and integrate semantic information; (2) to determine when different kinds of contextual information (syntax, thematic information, semantic information, discourse information) are integrated in real time; and (3) to identify the role of the inferior frontal gyrus in these integration processes. In order to investigate these topics we have made use of behavioral methods, Event-Related Potentials (ERP) and functional neuroimaging (fMRI). We also examine neurological patients with brain damage who are impaired in normal language comprehension (aphasic patients), and non-aphasic patients with lesions in the right hemisphere. The combination of these approaches can provide information on language comprehension processes as they unfold in real time, but also hold the obvious possibility of identifying areas in the brain that are crucial to normal language understanding.
Dr. Ron Mangun to serve as Interim Dean