Psychology G4470. Psychology and Neuropsychology of Language. Spring 2013.

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1 Psychology G4470. Psychology and Neuropsychology of Language. Spring I. Course description, as it will appear in the bulletins. II. A full description of the content of the course III. Rationale for giving the course IV. Course requirements V. Weekly outline of topics and readings I. Course description, as it will appear in the bulletins. G4470. Psychology and Neuropsychology of Language 4 pts. M. Miozzo. T 4:10-6:00 P.M. Room 405 Schermerhorn Hall. Prerequisite: instructor s permission (a course in the psychology of language or linguistics highly recommended). This seminar surveys current theories of language production. We will examine psycholinguitsic and neuroimaging studies of word and sentence production conducted with monolingual and bilingual speakers, and individuals with acquired language impairments. II. A full description of the content of the course In order to produce a sentence, speakers have to formulate a representation of the message they want to express, retrieve the proper words (their meaning, syntactic features and sounds), plan the sentence structure, order the words according to specific rules and finally, activate motor plans for articulation. This course reviews the current theories that describe the various processes underlying language production. These theories are traditionally based on the analyses of naming latencies and speech errors, and on the outcomes of computer simulations. This course also examines the pattern of performance of brain-damaged patients with selective deficits in language production and the rapidly growing body of evidence obtained with neuroimaging techniques (positron emission tomography, functional magnetic resonance and event-related potential). The importance of the latter types of data is twofold: they provide the empirical evidence needed to formulate hypotheses about the organization of processes for language production in the brain and in several cases they challenge dominant psycholinguistic theories. This course examines both oral and written language production, the organization of mechanisms for language production in bilingual speakers and issues related to cross-linguistic variations. In addition, this course provides a critical examination of the assumptions underlying neuropsychological and neuroimaging investigations. Although this course focuses primarily on language production, it also considers language comprehension to determine to what extent distinct cognitive processes and brain structures are devoted to language production and comprehension.

2 III. The rationale for giving the course, its role in the overall curriculum, and its relationship to any specific departmental major, degree program, specialization, or concentration. PSYC G4470 is an advanced seminar, designed particularly for graduate students, for advanced undergraduates who are majoring in Psychology, in Neuroscience and Behavior, or in Linguistics, and for students participating in the Psychology Postbac Certificate Program. These students will have priority in registration, followed by junior majors followed by non-majors. As an advanced seminar, this course will offer students who have already taken one or more lecture courses in language or linguistics a valuable opportunity for advanced study and discussion of the research literature on language production. It will also ameliorate a serious shortage of advanced seminars in which students have opportunities to develop their oral and written presentation skills. The Psychology Program Goals that will be advanced in this seminar (see include 1. Knowledge base; 2. Research methods; 4. Critical thinking; 5. Values in psychology; 6. Application of psychology; 7. Communication skills written; 8. Communication skills oral; 9. Information and technological literacy. It fulfills the following degree requirements: For Psychology Graduate Students, PSYC G4470 will apply toward the two seriously graded seminars requirement of the Master s degree. For the Psychology major or concentration in the College and in G. S., for the Psychology minor in Engineering, and for the Psychology Postbac Certificate, G4470 meets the Group II (Psychobiology and Neuroscience) distribution requirement. For the Neuroscience and Behavior joint major, G4470 will fulfill the 5 th Psychology requirement: one advanced psychology seminar from a list approved by the Psychology Department advisor to the program. For non-majors in the College and GS, G4470 by virtue of its numbering in the 4400's--will count as one term of the natural science requirement, provided that students obtain the necessary permission and have taken the prerequisite psychology courses. For the Psychology Postbac certificate, PSYC G4470 will fulfill the advanced seminar requirement. For the Barnard Psychology major, PSYC G4470 will fulfill the senior seminar requirement.

3 IV. Course requirements Grading: The final grade will be determined on the basis of the three following factors: (a) class participation and students presentations (30%); (b) class assignments (readings & questions) (30%); and (c) research paper (40%). (a) Class participation and presentation. Class participation is fundamental to the seminar. Everyone is expected to come to class prepared to discuss the assigned reading materials, to raise questions and comments, and to contribute to the group learning process. For each class, selected members of the class will present an empirical paper on the topic assigned for that day. Their task is to provide an introduction of the topics addressed in the paper, a summary of the experimental results and to raise comments about the claims of the papers. This introduction will prepare the class for the open discussion that will follow. Students will meet with me to select the paper ahead of their presentation. (b) Class assignments. Students are expected to come to class having attentively read the assigned reading materials. They are also expected to bring to class questions about the content of the reading materials. Students questions will be discussed during the class. (c) Research paper. Students are expected to write a research paper that will be due at the end of the course. The paper should have the format of a research paper published in a scientific journal in the sense that it has to include thought experiment(s) aimed at addressing a question about language processing. The student is expected to outline the hypothesis tested by the experiment, define the design of the experiment, and describe the possible outcomes and their implications. Students are not required to run the experiments they propose. The paper should also include an introduction in which relevant theories and experimental results are reviewed. This project provides students with the opportunity to experience how hypotheses are empirically tested in experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience. The preparation of the final paper comprises three stages: (a) submission of the topic (a page-long description of the topic; it will be due at around the fifth week of the course; I have to approve the topic); (b) brief description of the hypothesis and list of published papers reviewed for the project (due around the ninth week of the course); (c) research paper. The paper should be no longer than 20 pages (doublespaced). Guidelines about the research paper and the design of the experiment will be provided during the course. V. Weekly outline of topics and readings Topics Week 1&2: Introduction What type of information do speakers need to produce a sentence? Introduction to experimental approaches in language production research: Psycholinguistics, neuropsychology and neuroimaging Classic language brain areas

4 Week 3&4: The meaning of words Compositional vs. non-compositional semantic theories Selective semantic deficits Meaning embodiment Temporal poles as semantic hubs Week 5&6: The lexicon Structure and content of the lexicon The representation of grammatical classes (nouns and verbs) The representation of morphologically complex words Temporal and posterior-frontal brain regions supporting lexical processing Week 7&8: Word sounds Lexical vs. phonological words Which phonological features are accessed in word production? The role of lexical and sublexical (e.g., syllabic, phonemic) features Selective impairments of word sound retrieval (anomias) Week 9&10: Articulation The articulatory organ An introduction to articulatory phonology Experimental phonology examples of this approach Week 11&12: Phrases and sentences The interaction between semantic, grammatical and phonological information The planning of phrases: The example of verb phrases The planning of sentences: The example of questions Selective impairments of grammatical processing ( agrammatisms ) Week 13&14: Bilingual minds and brains Theories of bilingual lexical processing Control of language selection and switching The effect of practice and proficiency on brain language representation Reading List. A review chapter is assigned for each class. In their presentations, students will present one recent empirical paper on the topic discussed in the class. I will guide students in their choice. The final reading list will include suggested empirical papers and review studies for those who seek additional information about particular topics. Week 1&2: Introduction Hillis, A. Neural bases of word representations 1 Wilson, C. Phonology and Phonetics 1 Indefrey, P. Brain-imaging studies of language production. In G. M. Gaskell (Ed.) The Oxford Handbook in Psycholinguistics (2007)

5 Week 3&4: The meaning of words Caramazza, A. Neural basis of word meaning 1 Brown-Schmidt, S. Message encoding 1 Week 5&6: The lexicon Dell, G. Lexical selection: behavioral and computational perspectives 1 Miozzo, M. Word structure 1 Week 7&8: Word sounds Goldrick, M. Phonological encoding of sounds 1 Shattuck-Hufnagel, S. Connected speech 1 Week 9&10: Articulation Goldstein, L. Articulatory bases of sounds 1 Ziegler, W. Neural bases of phonological and articulatory processing 1 Week 11&12: Phrases and sentences Bock, K. Grammatical encoding 1 Thompson, C. Neural bases of sentence processing 1 Week 13&14: Bilingual minds and brains Costa, A. Bilingual word access 1 Kroll, J. Word meaning in bilinguals 1 1 These are chapters from Miozzo, M., Goldrick, M. & Ferreira, V (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook in Language Production (to appear in 2012).