Jon’s new book, Language and the brain: A slim guide to neurolinguistics is now available for pre-order! This book, published by Oxford University Press, does just what it says in the title. From the jacket blurb:
This book introduces readers to the state-of-the-art neuroscientific research that is revolutionizing our understanding of language […] Written in an accessible, conversational style […] this slim guide will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in how the human brain allows us to use language.
People who have read it so far seem to like it! You can pre-order it now from stores such as Ann Arbor’s own local Literati book store. It should be available in April.
A full summary is below the fold.
This book introduces readers to the state-of-the-art neuroscientific research that is revolutionizing our understanding of language. Interest in the brain bases of language goes back to the birth of the modern neurosciences in the late nineteenth century. Today, tools such as fMRI and EEG allow us to study brain activity non-invasively as people perform complex cognitive tasks like talking or reading. In this book, Jonathan Brennan shows how brain signals are connected with the intricate cognitive structures that underlie human language. Each chapter focuses on specific insights including the neural codes for speech perception, meaning, and sentence structure. The book also explores larger themes such as how to connect abstract notions like “knowing a language” to concrete signals that are measured in a laboratory, and how to reconcile apparently conflicting pieces of data that arise from different experiments. Written in an accessible, conversational style, and featuring a glossary of key terms, this slim guide will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in how the human brain allows us to use language.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- The toolbox
- Sounds in the brain
- A neural code for speech
- Activating words
- Representing meaning
- Structure and prediction
- Composing sentences
- Building dependencies
- Wrapping up