2026/02/09 by Elliot Murphy · 2 voices
Neuroscience · Psychology · #Action Observation and Synchronization #Language, Metaphor, and Cognition #Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
paper · pdf · doi:10.5964/bioling.21469
openalex publication_date 2026/02/09 · openalex created_date 2026/02/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
The dominant models of how human language is neurally implemented have been slowly disintegrating for many years now, but the challenge of assembling a more modern take on this ancient question can only be feasibly undertaken by someone willing to wade through an increasingly dense literature.This someone should ideally also be involved in contemporary experimental neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics.It is with a unique sense of historical context, and contemporary clinical urgency, that Gregory Hickok assumes this task of proposing an updated view of human language processing.His book Wired for Words surveys the field of the neurobiology of language and offers a unique model.The book is primarily focused on the architecture of the brain's language network.In slight contrast in emphasis to his early collaborator David Poeppel, Hickok agrees that "localization explanation", but he makes the important point that it is, nevertheless, useful information to have (indeed, it is difficult to think of any researcher who actually thinks localization is explanation).For example, if neural effects of syntax are robustly localized not just to left-hemispheric frontotemporal sites, but to right-hemispheric dor sal parietal sites, that is hugely important information to have.And this surely will inform mechanistic accounts, just as much as hippocampal localization of navigation and spatial memory informs mechanistic models in other domains.Different brain regions commonly host distinct cell types, and exhibit different intrinsic rhythmic properties and resting-state profiles, and connectivity profiles, both structural and dynamical in their inter-areal signatures-and all of this can contribute to narrowing down mechanistic can