The cognitively based theories that influence current psycholinguistic research are based largely on non-neural data and theoretical constructs. The foundations of these theories are formal linguistic models of grammar as well as cognitive models of memory, attention, and learning. However, given that language processing must take place in a physical structure, it is critical to develop theories that are biologically plausible and compatible with other theories in the cognitive neurosciences. The 26th Annual CUNY Human Sentence Processing Conference, to be held in March 2013 at the University of South Carolina, will include a Special Session to address this question: Can the basic architecture of language developed in the 1950s and 1960s that was based primarily on linguistic evidence, or in the 1980s and 1990s based on statistical constraint-based models, survive in the era of brain imaging, brain stimulation, and sophisticated cognitive neuropsychology? If not, what new architectures for the language system are compatible with what has been learned from the entire range of relevant evidence--including linguistic, behavioral, and biological data?
The Special Session will bring together six prominent researchers to consider this fundamental issue. This particular group was chosen because a range of major cognitive neuroscience methodologies besides traditional neuropsychology is represented, and because the speakers take diverse theoretical perspectives on linguistic architectures and processing.
The Special Session will make contact with the widest possible spectrum of conference attendees, but particularly with younger scientists with interests in neurobiological approaches to cognition and language. The Special Session will also help to ensure that the resource-intensive research undertaken by neuroscientists studying language will have as broad an impact as possible and will begin to seriously inform fundamental theorizing in all areas of psycholinguistics.
, March 21-23, 2013, at the University of South Carolina. The special session consisted of six invited talks by Evelina Fedorenko, Julius Fridriksson, Peter Hagoort, Gina Kuperberg, Liina Pylkkäanen, and Mark Seidenberg. This particular group was chosen because the range of major cognitive neuroscience methodologies besides traditional neuropsychology is represented (Event-Related Potentials, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, transcranial Direct Current Stimulation), and because the speakers take diverse theoretical perspectives on linguistic architectures and processing. In addition, in response to a call for papers, 10 talks were accepted for presentation as part of the special session as well as 30 poster presentations. The special session was extremely well attended, and the question period was animated and constructive. Discussions took place during the official conference sessions as well as during meals and breaks. The main result was the emergence of a consensus that a great deal has been learned about language and language processing due to the availability of data using neuroscience techniques. Language areas and language circuits have been identified, and the tools of neuroscience have been used to distinguish details of processing that could not be measured using purely behavioral techniques. At the same time the session and discussions made it clear that while knowledge about brain function has provided important evidence, findings about the brain have not resulted in completely new major theoretical ideas that were not already developped on the basis of linguistic and behavioral evidence.
