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Research in the Brain and Language Lab is concerned with the cognitive mechanisms involved in language comprehension and production. The research in our lab involves studies on normal subjects and on brain-damaged populations. The nearby Texas Medical Center serves as a source of patient populations and provides opportunities for collaboration with medical researchers. In addition to continuing cognitive studies involving behavioral measures, we are beginning studies involving event-related brain potentials and functional neuroimaging. Studies on this range of populations and using these varying techniques will provide information about the cognitive components involved in language functions and their cerebral localization.
There has been a tremendous growth of interest in cognitive neuroscience in recent years. The theory and methods of cognitive psychology have provided important means for investigating the nature of cognitive deficits and for probing cognitive function in studies of brain activation. Reciprocally, the information gained from studies of brain-damaged populations and from neuroimaging studies of normal subjects has provided fascinating insights regarding neural organization and has provided challenges for theories of cognitive function. We are excited about the prospects for contributing to the growth of knowledge about language processing and its organization in the brain through the use of these converging methodologies.
One long-standing area of interest in our lab is the relation between short-term memory (STM) and language processing. Most aphasic patients (i.e., patients who have a language deficit after brain damage) have both reduced STM spans and impaired comprehension and production. In research sponsored by NIH we are investigating the different types of STM deficits displayed by aphasic patients and the relation of these deficits to language processing. We are also investigating this relation in normal subjects by examining the effects of memory load on comprehension and production. A recent interest is the relation of short-term memory deficits to deficits in long-term learning. We are examining this relation for both explicit and implicit memory tests.
A second related area of interest is speech production and the processes involved in word, phrase and sentence production. We are interested in the time course of semantic and phonological processes involved in naming and phrase production and in the working memory load involved in planning multi-word utterances.
A third area of interest is the structure of the reading and writing systems. We are examining patients with different types of reading disorders to test models of reading which postulate either single or multiple routes for reading. We have also been interested in the extent to which the same orthographic representations are involved in reading and writing.
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From left to right, the Brain and Language Lab is: Philip Burton, post-doctoral fellow; Yan Cheng, graduate student; Fero Kuminiak, post-doctoral fellow; Randi Martin, Elma Schneider Professor of Psychology and Department Chair; Kelly Biegler, graduate student; Frank Tamborello, research assistant; and Cris Hamilton, graduate student. |
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