Cognitive Neuroscience of Language (VS1) (P01495)

? Credit Points : 10 ? SCQF Level : 11 ? Acronym : INF-P-CNL-V

This course is set-up as an advanced introduction to the cognitive neuroscience of language. It is designed primarily for graduate students in the MSc informatics program. How do we use language? What are the brain bases of language? This course endeavours to provide a state-of-the art survey on the current knowledge of the way the brain organizes itself to represent and process various types of language-related knowledge (from words to sentences, spoken or written).

The question central to this course will be whether particular areas and functions of the brain can be found to be correlated with language functions identified by psycholinguists. In our attempt to answer this question, we will draw on methods from a variety of different disciplines, Neuroanatomy, Cognitive Psychology, Computational modelling, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Functional neuroimaging techniques, and the interconnection of them all, Cognitive Neuroscience. These various approaches to data and theory will be used to provide a survey of current issues in the correlations between language use and specific brain areas and functions. We will not attempt to cover all current research in the field - no course could come close to accomplishing this. Instead, we will aim to give students a sense of what the major issues are, and how researchers currently address them.

Entry Requirements

? This course is only available to part year visiting students.

? This course is a variant of the following course : P00863

? Pre-requisites : For Informatics PG students only, or by special permission of the School. Students should have a background in one or more of the following - Linguistics, Cognitive Psychology, Psycholinguistics, Cognitive Sciences, or Neurosciences. Students without such a background are encouraged to read one of the textbooks listed on the lecture website, in the section "making up for gaps in knowledge". This course is only available to part-year visiting students who are only in Edinburgh for Semester 1.

? Prohibited combinations : Brain and Language (PPL-4-BL-PS)

Subject Areas

Home subject area

Cognitive Neuroscience, (School of Informatics, Schedule O)

Other subject areas

Vision, Perception and Action, (School of Informatics, Schedule O)

Language Processing, (School of Informatics, Schedule O)

Delivery Information

? Normal year taken : Postgraduate

? Delivery Period : Semester 1 (Blocks 1-2)

? Contact Teaching Time : 2 hour(s) per week for 10 weeks

First Class Information

Date	Start	End	Room	Area	Additional Information
21/09/2007	14:00	14:50			Room A9/11, Forrest Hill

All of the following classes

Type	Day	Start	End	Area
Lecture	Tuesday	14:00	14:50	Central
Lecture	Friday	14:00	14:50	Central

Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes

Students will have a solid base of knowledge, and the ability to discuss it, of the following:
-The fundamentals of brain neuroanatomy and have an overview of the most prevalent neuropsychological disorders.
-The various study methods used in cognitive neuroscience (case studies of brain-damaged patients, experimental approach, functional neuroimaging techniques)
-The relevance of studies involving brain imaging for psycholinguistic theories.
-The major issues in the domain of brain and language
-The contribution that each of the fields, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, computational modelling, and brain-imaging, makes to the study of the question of the correlates between brain and language. Also why neuroscientists decided to take a muti-displinary approach by which they find evidences of different sorts to their question.

At the end of this course students will be able to:
-Read research papers in the areas of cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and brain-imaging and to summarize their central ideas and/or results.
-Perform a literature search to locate academic information appropriate to answer a specific question in neuroscience.
-Read a set of articles thought to be all related to a research question and, based on this, to apprehend what the different dimensions of the question are and whether each paper provides or not a total or partial answer answer to this question.
-Write a research paper using accurate, sound, verifiable, scholarly information.