NEUROLINGUISTICS

The course aims to provide students with knowledge and skills to study language as a mental function within a broader cognitive neuroscience perspective. We will review methods to study the relationship between the brain and language use and the linking hypotheses between levels of explanation, speech perception and speech decoding, the neurolinguistics of sentence comprehension, the neurolinguistics of word and sentence production, acquired language disorders, functional reorganization after brain injury, language interventions in aphasia, neurolinguistics of multilingualism.

Students will have knowledge and understanding of the following topics

1. language in the context of the cognitive neurosciences, neurolinguistic levels of explanation and linking hypotheses between levels
2. experimental methods in neurolinguistics
3. neurolinguistic models of language comprehension
4. neurolinguistic models of language production
5. comprehension and production in acquired neurogenic disorders
6. neuroplasticity and functional recovery in aphasia
7. common and segregated neural circuitry for comprehension and production
8. segregating language from speech
9. neurolinguistic aspects of second language learning
10. neurolinguistics of multilingualism
11. research ethics


Applying knowledge and understanding

Students will show that they can apply their theoretical and methodological knowledge of psycholinguistics to analyse, understand and critique all sections of a theoretical, empirical or computational research report; students will individually gain practice with an experimental presentation software package; students will collaborate on the design of a neurolinguistic experiment with a pre-assigned group of peers guided by the instructor and construct a template for an experiment from scratch, including sample stimuli. They will program a complete trial of the experiment and present their work as a group, giving the necessary theoretical and methodological background.

A basic curiosity for understanding how language works inside our heads. A general background in linguistics including syntax, phonetics and phonology, an introduction to statistics.

1. language in the context of the cognitive neurosciences, neurolinguistic levels of explanation and linking hypotheses between levels
2. experimental methods in neurolinguistics
3. neurolinguistic models of language comprehension
4. neurolinguistic models of language production
5. comprehension and production in acquired neurogenic disorders
6. neuroplasticity and functional recovery in aphasia
7. common and segregated neural circuitry for comprehension and production
8. segregating language from speech
9. neurolinguistic aspects of second language learning
10. neurolinguistics of multilingualism
11. research ethics

Burchert, F., Meissner, N., and De Bleser, R. (2008). Production of non-canonical sentences in agrammatic aphasia: limits in representation or rule application? Brain Lang. 104, 170–179. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2007.06.004
Cho, S., and Thompson, C. K. (2010). What goes wrong during passive sentence production in agrammatic aphasia: an eyetracking study. Aphasiology 24, 1576–1592. doi: 10.1080/02687031003714442
Cho-Reyes, S., Mack, J. E., and Thompson, C. K. (2016). Grammatical encoding and learning in agrammatic aphasia: evidence from structural priming. J. Mem. Lang. 91, 202–218. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2016.02.004
Cho-Reyes, S., and Thompson, C. K. (2012). Verb and sentence production and comprehension in aphasia: Northwestern Assessment of Verbs and Sentences. Aphasiology 26, 1250–1277. doi: 10.1080/02687038.2012.693584
DeLuca, V., Segaert, K., Mazaheri, A., Krott, A. (2020). Understanding bilingual brain function and structure changes? U bet! A unified bilingual experience trajectory model. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 56, 1–14.
Dickey, M. W., and Yoo, H. (2010). Predicting outcomes for linguistically specific sentence treatment protocols. Aphasiology 24, 787–801. doi: 10.1080/02687030903515354
Finkl, T.; Hahne, A., Friederici, A. Gerber, J.; Mürbe, D., Anwander, A. (2020). Language without speech: Segregating distinct circuits in the human brain. Cerebral Cortex 30 (2), pp. 812–823.
Friederici, A. (2002). Towards a neural basis of auditory sentence processing. Trends Cogn Sci 6(2):78–84.
Friederici, A. (2020). Hierarchy processing in human neurobiology: How specific is it? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B: Biological Sciences 375 (1789).
Friederici, A. (2016). The neuroanatomical pathway model of language: Syntactic and semantic networks. In: Neurobiology of Language, pp. 349–356 (Eds. Small, S.; Hickok, G.). Elsevier, Amsterdam.
Hickok, G. (2012). Computational neuroanatomy of speech production. Nat Rev Neu- rosci 13(2):135–145.
Lee, J., Yoshida, M., and Thompson, C. K. (2015). Grammatical planning units during real-time sentence production in agrammatic aphasia and healthy speakers. J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res. 58, 1182–1194. doi: 10.1044/2015_JSLHR-L-14-0250
Lukic, S., Thompson, C., Barbieri, E., Chiappetta, B., Bonakdapour, B., Kiran, S.; Rapp, B., Parrish, T., Caplan, D. (2021). Common and distinct neural substrates of sentence production and comprehension. Neuroimage, 224,
Thompson, C. K., den Ouden, D. B., Bonakdarpour, B., Garibaldi, K., and Parrish, T. B. (2010). Neural plasticity and treatment-induced recovery of sentence processing in agrammatism. Neuropsychologia 48, 3211–3227. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.06.036
Menenti, L. Gierhan, S., Saegert, K., Hagoort, P. (2011). Shared Language: Overlap and segregation of the neuronal infrastructure for speaking and listening as revealed by functional MRI. Psychological Science 22(9), 1173–1182.
Meyer, A., Mack, J., Thompson, C. (2012). Tracking passive sentence comprehension in agrammatic aphasia. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 31–43.
Pylkkänen, L., Bemis, D., Blanco Elorieta (2014). Building phrases in language production: An MEG study of simple composition. Cognition, 113, 371–384.
Rapp, B., Buchwald, A., Goldrick, M .(2014). Integrating accounts of speech production: The devil is in the representational details. Lang Cogn Neurosci 29(1):24–27.

1. A written exam consisting of three essay questions and seven multiple choice questions. [See below for details on grade breakdown.]
2. A project to be completed during the course of the semester working in preassigned groups of 2-10 peers and a final oral presentation to the entire class. [See below for details on grade breakdown.]

1. Written exam: maximum 30 points. Grade breakdown is as follows: essay questions are 7,5 points each; six multiple choice questions are 1 point, one multiple choice question is 1,5. Wrong answers in the multiple choice section result in points off.
2.Group project: maximum 30 points. Assessment is based on: quality of the material sent in to the instructor and shared with peers; quality of the final presentation. Individual contributions to the group project: 1-3 points based on the quantity and quality of the work contributed to steering the group and accomplishing the tasks.

Frontal lessons for the theory parts, online tutorials, cooperative group learning for the applied components of the course.

English

Accessibility, Disability and Inclusion: Information regarding accommodation and support services for students with disabilities and students with specific learning impairments

Ca Foscari abides by Italian Law (Law 17/1999; Law 170/2010) regarding support services and accommodation available to students with disabilities. This includes students with
mobility, visual, hearing and other disabilities (Law 17/1999), and specific learning impairments (Law 170/2010). If you have a disability or impairment that requires accommodations (i.e., alternate testing, readers, note takers or interpreters) please contact the Disability and Accessibility Offices in Student Services: disabilita@unive.it.

written and oral