The Languages of the Brain (Mind/Brain/Behavior Initiative) - Hardcover

Albert M. Galaburda is Emily Fisher-Landau Professor of Neurology (Neuroscience) at Harvard Medical School.

There are more than 5000 languages in the world. One of the extraordinary features of the developing human brain is its capacity, under the right circumstances, to learn any of those languages regardless of their linguistic complexity or syntactic peculiarities. Linguists have taught us much about the syntax and semantics of the world's languages, and behavioral neurologists have mapped out the regions of the brain that are essential for the normal functioning of these subcomponents of language, but we know very little about the internal languages of the brain. How many "languages" does the brain use to process, store, and reproduce information? Some scientists predict that since the genetic code has now been mapped, the next major milestone might be the breaking of the neural code. There is more to language than words, and the chapters in this book illuminate various ways in which thoughts can be represented or communicated. The first part of the book is devoted to verbal representation of thoughts, and the second part to nonverbal representation. The book is the printed version of the conference "The Languages of the Brain" that was held in Paris in March 1998. The list of contributors includes stellar representatives from a variety of fields, among them cognitive psychology, philosophy, psychiatry, neurology, linguistics, and anthropology. The first part of the book comprises three sections. The section "Verbal Processes" focuses on fairly traditional aspects of language and thought, and true to the tradition of Paul Broca, the relation between a certain behavior and its brain correlates is typically discussed in the context of "where" in the brain and not "how" in the brain. This book is not about aphasia, however. Rather, it covers a wide range of topics, from the localization of syntactic abilities to the cerebral blood-flow patterns associated with the reading of poetry. The second part of the book, about nonverbal communication, starts out with the provocative statement that although language serves the rather obvious purpose of expressing our thoughts, it is unlikely to be the language of thought itself, because if it were, why do we often have difficulty finding the right word to express our thoughts? This part of the book discusses nonlinguistic and conceptual ways of conveying information, such as the role of imagery and motor representations. The excellent thematic organization of the book notwithstanding, the glue that holds the various articles together is the transcripts of the discussion sessions from the conference. These are included at the end of each section and are in many ways the most enjoyable part of the book. In summary, this is a somewhat kaleidoscopic overview of multiple topics that are relevant to modes of verbal and nonverbal representation of thought in or by the brain. The extent to which the many viewpoints presented in this book will come together as a more coherent picture is left more or less to the reader. For anyone interested in how the brain accomplishes the most complex of all human activities, language, this book offers many stimulating thoughts. If language be the food of thought, read on. Ola A. Selnes, Ph.D.
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