Language, Communication and the Brain

描述（由申请人提供）：我们建议更新语言，交流和大脑的跨学科项目，旨在培养新一代跨学科，多方法的语言科学家。该计划将这个社区中丰富的专业知识、想法、人口和技术汇集在一起，供对语言学习、使用和终身障碍背后的心理和神经机制感兴趣的年轻科学家使用。未来5年的跨部门项目（跨越4个部门）将由一个由5对初级和高级主管组成的执行委员会（包括项目主管M. Kutas）和5个研究培训组成部分的主管领导：(1)心理语言学（K. Rayner， V. Ferreiera），包括使用行为、眼动追踪和电生理测量的实时语言理解和生产研究；(2)语言的神经影像学（E. Halgren， R. Kluender），包括ERP、MEG、fMRI和应用于正常和异常个体的颅内记录；(3)语言计算建模（J. Elman, a . Kehler），包括广泛的建模技术（例如，神经网络，大规模语言语料库的统计分析，贝叶斯模型）；(4)手语和手势（K. Emmorey， S. Coulson）通过多种技术本身研究，并作为人类语言的神经生物学和认知结构的探针；(5)语言习得与衰退（M. Kutas， R. Mayberry），从婴儿到老年的语言习得、学习和使用的多方法研究。所有受训者都专攻（至少）5个领域中的2个，通过实验室轮岗、课程作业和加州大学圣地亚哥分校语言研究中心的活动，对所有5个领域都有一定的接触，该中心由加州大学圣地亚哥分校和加州大学圣地亚哥分校的科学家组成。每年招收博士预科生7人（增加1人），博士后2人（每人支持2年）。这个培训项目对公众健康的好处在于改变主流观点，即语言是一种抽象的符号处理，在某些大脑结构中实例化的规则生成系统，而不是一种更动态的观点，即语言是一种处理经验，可能会改变参与解释语言的大脑区域的解剖（和相关功能）组织。这种变化的观点对第一和第二语言（双语和移民）的学习和正常衰老和脑损伤的修复具有重要意义。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We propose renewal of our interdisciplinary program in Language, Communication, and the Brain aimed at training a new breed of interdisciplinary, multi-method language scientist. The proposed program pulls together the expertise, ideas, populations and technologies available in abundance across this community, placing them at the disposal of young scientists interested in the mental and neural mechanisms underlying language learning, use, and disorders across the lifespan. The cross-departmental program (across 4 departments) for the next 5 years will be headed by an Executive Committee of 5 junior-senior director pairs (including program director, M. Kutas) and directors of 5 research-training components: (1) Psycholinguistics (K. Rayner, V. Ferreiera), including studies of real-time language comprehension and production, using behavioral, eye tracking, and electrophysiological measures; (2) Neuroimaging of Language (E. Halgren, R. Kluender), including ERP, MEG, fMRI, and intracranial recordings applied to normal and abnormal individuals; (3) Computational Modeling of Language (J. Elman, A. Kehler), including a broad class of modeling techniques (e.g., neural networks, statistical analysis of large scale language corpora, Bayesian models); (4) Signed Languages and Gesture (K. Emmorey, S. Coulson) studied via multiple techniques per se and as probes into the neurobiological and cognitive architectures of human language; and (5) Language Acquisition and Decline (M. Kutas, R. Mayberry), multi-method approaches to the language acquisition, learning, and use from infancy to old age. All trainees specialize in (at least) 2 of the 5 areas, with some exposure to all 5 areas through laboratory rotations, coursework, and activities within the UCSD Center for Research in Language, offered by a larger faculty of scientists at UCSD and SDSU. We request 7 pre-doctoral (increase of 1) and 2 post-doctoral (each supported for 2 years) trainees per year. The public health benefits of this training program will be to change the predominant view that language is an abstract symbol processing, rule-generating system instantiated in some brain structure to a more dynamic one in which language is a processing experience that may alter the anatomical (and associated functional) organizations of the brain regions involved in interpreting it. This changing perspective has implications for 1st and 2nd language (bilingual & immigrant) learning and remediation with normal aging and brain damage.