Table Of ContentPERSPECTIVES IN
NEUROLINGUISTICS, NEUROPSYCHOLOGY, AND
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS: A Series of Monographs and Treatises
Harry A. Whitaker, Series Editor
DEPARTMENT OF HEARING AND SPEECH SCIENCES
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
COLLEGE PARK, MARYLAND 20742
HAIGANOOSH WHITAKER and HARRY A. WHITAKER (Eds.).
Studies in Neurolinguistics, Volumes 1, 2, 3, and 4
NORMAN J. LASS (Ed.). Contemporary Issues in Experimental Phonetics
JASON W. BROWN. Mind, Brain, and Consciousness: The Neuropsychology
of Cognition
SIDNEY J. SEGALOWITZ and FREDERIC A. GRUBER (Eds.). Language Devel-
opment and Neurological Theory
SUSAN CURTISS. Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study of a Modern-Day "Wild
Child"
JOHN MACNAMARA (Ed.). Language Learning and Thought
I. M. SCHLESINGER and LILA NAMIR (Eds.). Sign Language of the Deaf:
Psychological, Linguistic, and Sociological Perspectives
WILLIAM C. RITCHIE (Ed.). Second Language Acquisition Research: Issues
and Implications
PATRICIA SIPLE (Ed.). Understanding Language through Sign Language
Research
MARTIN L. ALBERT and LORAINE K. OBLER. The Bilingual Brain: Neuro-
psychological and Neurolinguistic Aspects of Bilingualism
TALMY GIVON. On Understanding Grammar
CHARLES J. FILLMORE, DANIEL KEMPLER, and WILLIAM S-Y. WANG
(Eds.). Individual Differences in Language Ability and Language Be-
havior
JEANNINE HERRON (Ed.). Neuropsychology of Left-Handedness
FRANÇOIS BÖLLER and MAUREEN DENNIS (Eds.). Auditory Comprehen-
sion: Clinical and Experimental Studies with the Token Test
R. W. RIEBER (Ed.). Language Development and Aphasia in Children:
New Essays and a Translation of "Kindersprache und Aphasie" by
Emil Fröscheis
GRACE H. YENI-KOMSHIAN, JAMES F. KAVANAGH, and CHARLES A.
FERGUSON (Eds.). Child Phonology, Volume 1: Production and Vol-
ume 2: Perception
The list of titles in this series continues on the last page of the volume.
NEURAL MODELS OF
LANGUAGE PROCESSES
Edited by
Michael A. Arbib
Computer and information Science
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, Massachusetts
David Caplan
Division of Neurology
Ottawa Civic Hospital
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
John C. Marshall
Neuropsychology Unit
The Radcliffe Infirmary
Oxford, England
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Neural models of language processes.
(Perspectives in neurolinguistics, neuropsychology,
and psycholinguistics)
Includes bibliographies and index.
1. Language and languages—Physiological aspects.
2. Psycholinguistics. 3. Artificial intelligence.
I. Arbib, Michael A. II. Caplan, David. III. Marshall,
John C. (John Crook), Date. IV. Series.
QP399.N46 153.6 81-20520
ISBN 0-12-059780-2 AACR2
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
82 83 84 85 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
List of Contributors
Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages on which the authors' contributions begin.
Michael A. Arbib (5, 77, 531), Computer and Information Science, University
of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003
Ursula Bellugi (271), The Salk Institute, San Diego, California 92112
Jason W. Brown (447), Neurology Department, New York University Medical
Center, New York, New York 10016
Ron Calvanio (371), Neurology Service, Massachusetts Rehabilitation Hospital,
Boston, Massachusetts 02114
David Caplan1 (5, 411), Division of Neurology, Ottawa Civic Hospital, Ottawa,
Ontario K1Y 4E9, Canada
Lyn Frazier (225), Department of Linguistics, University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, Massachusetts 01002
Albert M. Galaburda (435), Neurological Unit, Beth Israel Hospital, Boston,
Massachusetts 02215
Merrill F. Garrett (209), Department of Psychology, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
Patricia S. Goldman-Rakic (469), Section of Neuroanatomy, Yale University
School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06510
Barry Gordon (511), Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University
School of Medicine, and Department of Neurology, Baltimore City Hospitals,
Baltimore, Maryland 21224
Mary-Louise Kean (173), School of Social Sciences, University of California,
Irvine, Irvine, California 92717
lPresent address: Department of Neurology, Temple University Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsyl-
vania 19140
XIII
XIV List of Contributors
Andrew Kertesz (25, 327), Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences, Uni-
versity of Western Ontario, St. Joseph's Hospital, London, Ontario N6A 4V2
Canada
Pierre M. Lavorel (135, 367), Laboratoire de Neuropsychologie Expérimentale,
INSERM U94, 16 Avenue Doyen Lépine, 69500 Bron, France
André Roch Lecours (345), Centre du Langage, Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal,
Montréal, Québec H2W 1T8, Canada
David N. Levine (299, 371), Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General
Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02114
Mitchell P. Marcus (115), Linguistics and Speech Analysis Research Depart-
ment, Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey 07974
Oscar S. M. Marin (45), Neurological Sciences Center, Laboratory of Neuro-
psychology, Good Samaritan Hospital and Medical Center, Portland, Oregon
97210
John C. Marshall (5, 389), Neuropsychology Unit, The Radcliffe Infirmary,
Oxford OX2 6HE, England
Howard Poizner2 (271), The Salk Institute, San Diego, California 92112
Marc L. Schnitzer (237), Department of English, University of Puerto Rico, Rio
Piedras, Puerto Rico 00931
Eric Sweet (299), Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Boston,
Massachusetts 02114
Charles C. Wood (485), Neuropsychology Laboratory, VA Medical Center,
West Haven, Connecticut 06516 and Departments of Neurology and Psy-
chology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520
William A. Woods (95), Bolt Beranek & Newman Inc., Cambridge, Mas-
sachusetts 02238
Edgar B. Zurif (203, 271), Aphasia Research Center, Boston University Medical
Center, Boston, Massachusetts 02130
2Present address: Departments of Neurology and Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, Con-
necticut 06520.
Preface
The contributors to this volume share a fascination with the nature of human
language and the means whereby we use it. For many, but by no means all, this
fascination takes the form of a concern for neurolinguistics, the study of brain
mechanisms subserving language. However, a concern for neurolinguistics in no
way guarantees unanimity as to methodology. Thus, Parts II-V of this volume
serve to group chapters into four methodological classes: artificial intelligence
and processing models; linguistic and psycholinguistic perspectives; neurological
perspectives; and neuroscience and brain theory. Although there certainly is
overlap between these areas, it is a sad truth that few practitioners of any area are
expert in another area, and virtually no one is familiar with the literature of all
four. There is a danger that building taller edifices within the traditional bound-
aries will make communication between them more difficult. The original ob-
ject of concern—language—tends to disappear behind the walls of anatomy,
psychology, and computation. We have therefore tried to organize a volume in
which chapters written from the perspective of one discipline will not merely
interest but will actually be relevant to scholars who work in another. The
ultimate goal is to understand a natural domain of phenomena; we thus look
forward to the day when intermediate representations and bridge laws between
the neuro- and the -linguistics can be formulated with sufficient clarity so that
results obtained under one approach have direct consequences and significance
for all others. Only at that point shall we be able to speak of "a biology of
language."
Our task, then, has been to select distinguished contributors to all the fields;
work with them to increase the accessibility of each chapter to those who do not
specialize in that discipline without diminishing its utility to the specialist; and to
preface each section with an introduction that will orient the nonspecialist to the
basic background material presupposed by individual contributions. We also
provide an opening framework that addresses three tasks: to place neurolinguistics
xv
XVI Preface
in current perspective, to provide two case studies of aphasia, and to discuss the
"rules of the game" of the various disciplines that contribute to this volume. The
reader thus may find it helpful to read Part I followed by the introductions to Parts
II—V before turning to detailed study of the remaining chapters.
The genesis of the book was itself an interesting process, and it was made
possible by a grant from the Sloan Foundation to the University of Massachusetts
at Amherst for a Program in Language and Information Processing. David Cap-
Ian spent 6 months as a visiting scientist at the University of Massachusetts,
during which time he and Michael Arbib articulated many of the themes de-
veloped in this volume. The editors then conducted two workshops on "Neural
Models of Language Processes." The first, held in Amherst in November 1979,
brought together many of the authors and helped them understand better the
"models of reality" of workers from other disciplines. The second meeting, held
in May 1980, not only filled in gaps in the range of topics from the previous
November, but also saw the presentation of new research catalyzed by the
November meeting. The succeeding months have seen considerable effort by
editors and authors alike to prepare chapters that do not report the proceedings of
the workshops but, rather, build upon the insights gained there. The resulting
volume is designed to provide a new perspective on neurolinguistics that inte-
grates the insights of neurology and neuroscience, linguistics and psycholinguis-
tics, and artificial intelligence and brain theory. Despite the considerable pro-
gress made in these intégra tive efforts, we have nonetheless structured the book
in discipline-oriented parts. We have done this for two reasons: first, so that the
specialists may have ready access to the chapters in their own fields; second, so
that nonspecialists will know where to turn for our exposition of the necessary
background for each chapter. Meanwhile, cross-references among chapters and
areas should, we hope, persuade specialists to explore beyond the boundaries of
their own discipline and so come to appreciate the vital contributions other
disciplines can make to their own.
I
AN OPENING PERSPECTIVE
In this first section, we appoint ourselves three main tasks: to place current
neurolinguistics in historical perspective; to present two case studies of aphasia;
and to discuss the variety of "rules of the game" that scientists from different
disciplines bring to their study of neurolinguistics.
Whatever the range of disciplines underlying current efforts to model the
neural underpinnings of language processes, the fact remains that current
neurolinguistics is rooted in the nineteenth century efforts of neurologists to corre-
late symptoms of a variety of language disturbances with the locus of damage to
the brain. This nineteenth century "breakthrough" in cortical localization was in
turn based on centuries of observation of the effects of head wounds on language
and other behavior.
In the first chapter (Arbib, Caplan, and Marshall), we attempt to provide a
fair, though necessarily brief, outline of the historical development of the field. We
stress the extent to which recent work draws upon many unarticulated assump-
tions that derive from the earliest days of systematic inquiry into brain-behavior
relationships. Our point is not that these uunconscious" constraints from the his-
tory of the discipline are necessarily false, or that they necessarily guide modern
research into unproductive paths. Rather, the point is that paradigms and re-
search programs must be made explicit if we are to see the ways in which they lead
to genuine results and insights and the manner in which they can sever access to
new and deeper theories. There is an understandable tendency to regard certain
aspects of current research as inviolate. That is, not open to criticism. The defini-
tion of syndromes in terms of performance on a restricted variety of tasks is one
example; another might be the notational conventions in which a theory is ex-
pressed (e.g., boxes and arrows); another is the notion of discrete processing stages.
In all these instances, we believe that consideration of the historical development
of neurolinguistics can help us to see that all aspects of a theoretical position
should be brought into the open and subjected to critical scrutiny. We also stress
l
2 Parti
that current linguistic theory has grown with little regard for problems of perfor-
mance (what are the processes involved in the production and perception of lan-
guage?) , let alone neurolinguistics (how are such processes played across the
brain?). Thus, it can be expected that linguistic theory will itself be dramatically
transformed as the data of psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics become accom-
modated within broader semiotic models.
In the second chapter, Kertesz displays, in as neutral a fashion as possible,
some of the primary data to which neurolinguistic theory must be responsive.
Although many other data sources are relevant to our understanding of the repre-
sentation of language in the human brain, the structure of impaired and preserved
language skills in the patient with (relatively) focal brain damage has always
constituted the major body of crucial observations. Despite the possibility today of
recording the on-line electrical and chemical activity of the normal brain during
the performance of various language tasks, it seems likely that clinicopathological
(including clinicoradiological) correlations will continue to provide the bulk of our
primary data for some time to come. In accordance with our historical remarks, we
note that such observations as those reported by Kertesz can only be "relatively"
neutral. One has already invoked a prototheory when one chooses "archetypal
examples7 ofBroca's and Wernickes aphasia because symptoms and symptom-
complexes are as varied as the patients who exhibit them. Indeed, a prototheory is
also summoned when one chooses these disorders for consideration rather than
others, such as the disorders of language seen in degenerative diseases of the brain.
Similarly, one has already adopted a position by assuming that any particular
task such as repetition or picture description is especially revealing. The reader is
particularly urged to note with Kertesz that the symptom-complexes of even a
single patient may vary drastically over time. This diversity across patients, and
within a patient across time, is rarely addressed by current neurolinguistic theory.
Only in the chapters by Goldman-Rakic and Gordon will we introduce the reader
to developments in cell-circuit-synapse neuroscience, rather than the region-by-
region neurology more familiar to neurolinguists, to provide insight into temporal
patterns of adaptation to lesions.
The final chapter in our opening perspective is by a neurologist (Marin) who
explores ways in which the lessons of the clinic may be assimilated to the insights of
artificial intelligence (AI), cognitive psychology, neurobiology, and other disci-
plines so that our analysis of language may be embedded in the integrated perspec-
tive of the nascent field of "cognitive neuroscience." Two particular aspects of this
presentation of the "rules of the game" are noteworthy for their departure from
approaches to neurolinguistics rooted in linguistic theory. The first is the stress on
biological evolution. This aspect suggests that without minimizing that which is
unique about language, we can gain much insight in our search for neural
mechanisms by seeking continuities between language abilities and more general
processes of perception, cognition, and movement control (a theme explored by
An Opening Perspective 3
Arbib in Part V). The second is that Marin is more impressed by the richness of the
lexicon of a language than he is by the number of its syntactic rules, and so urges
far more attention to the lexicon than is accorded it in many contemporary
approaches to neurolinguistics.
We hope that an understanding of the diversity of'rules of the game of the
array of disciplines will help associate this varied expertise to topics of common
interest and concern. Some way surely has to be found in which results obtained
in one discipline can speak to issues raised in another, if the eventual goal of a
unified neurolinguistic theory is to be achieved.
