A Neurociência da Linguagem - Pulvermüller

Livro recente de Friedemann Pulvermüller, bem descrito pelo texto da editoria (Cambridge): “Como a linguagem é organizada no cérebro humano? A Neurociência da Linguagem estabelece um modelo sistemático de linguagem para eliminar a barreira entre linguística e neurociência. Os modelos neuronais de processamento de palavra e de ordem serial estão apresentados sob forma de uma rede neural computacional e conexionista. A ênfase linguística está nas palavras e nas regras sintáticas elementares. Os capítulos introdutórios se concentram na estrutura e função neuronais, nos processos cerebrais cognitivos, no básico da pesquisa clássica sobre afasia e na moderna neuroimagem de linguagem, e no básico das teorias sintáticas. A essência da obra está contida nos capítulos sobre redes e algoritmos neurais, sintaxe básica, mecanismos de ordem serial e gramática neuronal. Por todo o texto, excursos ilustram o funcionamento de modelos cerebrais da linguagem, alguns dos quais são acessíveis enquanto animações no website que acompanha o livro. Será atraente para estudantes de graduação e pesquisadores de neurociência, psicologia, linguística e modelagem computacional”. No prefácio do livro, a questão básica da obra recebe uma descrição melhor:

How is language organized in the human brain? This book provides results of brain activation studies, facts from patients with brain lesions, and hints from computer simulations of neural networks that help answer this question. Great effort was spent to spell out the putative neurobiological basis of words and sentences in terms of nerve cells, or neurons. The neuronal mechanisms – that is, the nerve cell wiring of language in the brain – are actually in the focus. This means that facts about the activation of cortical areas, about the linguistic deficits following brain disease, and the outcome of neural network simulations will always be related to neuronal circuits that could explain them, or, at least, could be their concrete organic counterpart in the
brain. In cognitive neuroscience, the following questions are commonly asked with regard to various higher brain functions, or cognitive processes, including language processes:
(1) Where? In which areas of the brain is a particular process located?
(2) When? Before and after which other processes does the particular process occur?
(3) How? By which neuron circuit or which neuron network type is the particular process realized?
(4) Why? On the basis of which biological or other principles is the particular process realized by this particular network, at this particular point in time, and at these particular brain loci?

The ultimate answer to the question of language and the brain implies answers to these questions, with respect to all aspects of language processing. The aspects of language relevant here include the physical properties of speech sounds and the sound structure of individual languages as specified by phonetics and phonology, the meaning and use of words and larger units of language as specified by semantics and pragmatics, and the rules underlying
the serial ordering of meaningful language units in sentences or larger sequences as specified by syntax. All of these aspects are addressed, although an emphasis is put on words and elementary syntactic rules.

The Neuroscience of Language: On Brain Circuits of Words and Serial Order
Friedemann Pulvermüller
Cambridge University Press 2008 Pages: 332 PDF 1.58 MB
http://rapidshare.com/files/252346816/TNeuroLang.rar