Human Language: From Genes and Brains to Behavior

ISBN 10: 0262042630 / ISBN 13: 9780262042635

Published by The MIT Press, 2019

About this Item

Used - Acceptable: All pages and the cover are intact, but shrink wrap, dust covers, or boxed set case may be missing. Pages may include limited notes, highlighting, or minor water damage but the text is readable. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting, but the text cannot be obscured or unreadable. Any access codes or passwords originally included with the book may be expired, used or no longer valid. Image is stock photo and cover art edition may be different than pictured.

Seller Inventory # MERV.0262042630.A

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Human Language: From Genes and Brains to Behavior
• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262042630
• ISBN 13: 9780262042635
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: acceptable

About this title

Synopsis

A unique overview of the human language faculty at all levels of organization.

Language is not only one of the most complex cognitive functions that we command, it is also the aspect of the mind that makes us uniquely human. Research suggests that the human brain exhibits a language readiness not found in the brains of other species. This volume brings together contributions from a range of fields to examine humans' language capacity from multiple perspectives, analyzing it at genetic, neurobiological, psychological, and linguistic levels.

In recent decades, advances in computational modeling, neuroimaging, and genetic sequencing have made possible new approaches to the study of language, and the contributors draw on these developments. The book examines cognitive architectures, investigating the functional organization of the major language skills; learning and development trajectories, summarizing the current understanding of the steps and neurocognitive mechanisms in language processing; evolutionary and other preconditions for communication by means of natural language; computational tools for modeling language; cognitive neuroscientific methods that allow observations of the human brain in action, including fMRI, EEG/MEG, and others; the neural infrastructure of language capacity; the genome's role in building and maintaining the language-ready brain; and insights from studying such language-relevant behaviors in nonhuman animals as birdsong and primate vocalization.

Section editors
Christian F. Beckmann, Carel ten Cate, Simon E. Fisher, Peter Hagoort, Evan Kidd, Stephen C. Levinson, James M. McQueen, Antje S. Meyer, David Poeppel, Caroline F. Rowland, Constance Scharff, Ivan Toni, Willem Zuidema

About the Author

Peter Hagoort is Director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Director of the Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging at the Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.