Language and the Brain – Neurocognitive Mechanisms of Language Processing
Prof. Dr. Christian Fiebach, Department of Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, on November 19, 2012
Language is a specifically human cognitive ability that distinguishes us from other species. It involves the recognition of words within a few hundred milliseconds and the combination of words to phrases and sentences, according to the rules of grammar. This combinatorial power makes it possible to communicate an infinite number of meanings based on a limited set of words. In the 19th century, language was one of the first mental capacities for which neurologists suggested a localization in the brain. Based on these early localization results, this talk gave an overview over modern neurocognitive research that investigates how language is organized in the brain.