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Pragmatic abnormalities or impairments have been described in a large range of developmental disorders and psychiatric and neurological diseases and conditions. Despite a rich literature, no clear picture has emerged concerning the neural underpinnings of the various aspects of pragmatic behavior. Reasons are manifold and include methodological issues, no conclusive picture of the processes involved in pragmatic behavior and vague concepts of the processes. It is argued that pragmatic behavior is a dynamic concept that emerges through the complex interaction of cognitive and non-cognitive processes. Consequently, the recruitment of neural substrates and neural networks depends on the processes implicated and may change from situation to situation. Atypical pragmatic behavior is the result of malfunctions at various levels of organization and occurs when the neural substrates and networks contributing to the fulfillment of such processes do not operate as required. An argument is made to include small- and large-scale brain networks into research on normal and abnormal pragmatic behavior.

The field of neuroimaging has experienced a tremendous boom due to technological advances in the last ten years and this is also reflected in the electroencephalography / event-related potentials (EEG/ERP) method. This contribution provides an overview of the main EEG/ERP hardware systems and software development currently on the market and the benefits of such technology for the study of language issues. We discuss the “added-value” such technology brings to the research of language and the possibilities of combining various neuroimaging technique with emphasis on the integration of EEG/ERP and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Our contribution ends with a look at what we think may be the methodologies that drive the field forward in the not too distant future.

Objective It has been hypothesized that the error negativity (Ne or ERN) is modulated by the midbrain dopaminergic system. Thus, in a depleted dopaminergic system as seen in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) one would expect an attenuated Ne. However, studies investigating the error negativities in medicated patients with PD have produced contradictory results and the present study was designed to explore this relationship further. Methods Using the event-related potential technique and an Eriksen flanker paradigm, we examined error negativities in nonmedicated (drug naive) and medicated PD patients and compared them to those of healthy controls. Results (a) The error negativities of the nonmedicated and medicated PD patients were attenuated compared to those of healthy elderly controls at frontocentral scalp sites; and (b) nonmedicated and medicated PD patients produced error negativities similar to each other. Conclusions PD results in diminished error negativities both in the early stage nonmedicated patients and in the later stage medicated patients. Significance Because both patient groups have reduced dopaminergic functioning compared to healthy controls, these findings are consistent with Ne amplitude being sensitive to modulations in that system.

Brain imaging and brain mapping techniques are major tools in language research and language rehabilitation. While this section aims to introduce the reader to the major techniques used in the study of language, it also wishes to raise the reader's awareness of the limitations of each of these methods. This discussion includes electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography, positron emission tomography, functional magnetic resonance imaging, density tensor imaging, functional near-infrared spectroscopy, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and transcranial direct current stimulation. The strengths and weaknesses of each of these methods – as well as examples of how these techniques have been applied to the study of language – follow explanations of how they function.

Most people are right handed with the left hemisphere controlling hand movement. This coincides with aspects of language being lateralized to the left hemisphere. Does this mean that handedness and language representation in the brain are in some way linked? How did handedness develop in evolutionary terms and developmentally? Is there a handedness gene, maybe even common for handedness and language? Is there a relation between the emergence of language and development of language before and after birth? There is a common belief that left-handers have language represented in the right brain. Is this myth or truth? More males are left-handed than females. Is this in any way related to the way language is lateralized in males and females? Left handedness has been associated with certain language disorders. What is the scientific evidence? Looking for an answer to these questions is not – as one might assume – as easy as it seems.

Are statements such as ‘Language is in the left hemisphere,’ ‘The first language is in the left and the second in the right hemisphere,’ ‘The brain of children recovers language perfectly after brain damage,’ ‘The adult brain cannot recover language functions and chronic aphasia does not improve over time,’ ‘Language functions are more lateralized to the left in men and more bilaterally in women’ truths or myths? This article will discuss these and other issues related to the contribution the left and right hemispheres make to certain aspects of language. As will be shown, there is not always a straightforward answer to seemingly simple questions.

Skilful reading is an astonishing accomplishment that implicates extracting sound and meaning from visual notations. This contribution investigates the neural substrates involved in reading and addresses questions such as whether there are neural systems in the brain dedicated to reading and whether reading affects brain organization in adults, in children learning to read, in the illiterate, and in the blind.

This essay summarizes the findings of studies investigating aspects of linguistic pragmatic behaviour and the brain correlates underlying such behaviour. Although pragmatics is a large field, most brain-oriented studies have focused on specific aspects of linguistic pragmatics such as structural discourse and figurative language. Research indicates that linguistic pragmatic behaviour relies on brain correlates that are routinely activated during word and sentence processing (the default language network). Although no agreement has yet been reached concerning questions such as whether these correlates are qualitatively and/or quantitatively different, whether additional brain areas/networks are implicated, and, if so, what these are, some concrete suggestions have emerged. At a more general level, there is consensus that the classical standard pragmatic model is not supported by most neuroimaging studies and that the right-hemisphere hypothesis on figurative language processing needs revision. The essay ends with some speculations on interpreting pragmatic behaviour within a microgenetic framework.

Motor, cognitive, social, demographic, and lesion site data were obtained from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and stroke patients at the time of first admission (between 35 and 43 days post brain damage) to inpatient neurological rehabilitation. The relationship between these data and outcome measures (defined as “basic” independence, “complex” independence, employment status) was investigated. In TBI patients, employment was best predicted by drive, processing speed, and attention, “basic” independence by processing speed and drive, and “complex” independence by drive alone. Brain stem lesions also proved to be strongly related to independence measures and employment status. For stroke patients, no variable predicted employment. Motor function was weakly related to “basic” independence measures, and the ability to establish contact strongly predicted “complex” independence measure.

Organism and environment are in a state of constant interaction, and discourse is viewed as one form of manifestation of this interaction. Through the study of discourse insights can be gained into those components that bring about mental events. Verbal structure, communication of beliefs and action/interaction are highly interactive dimensions of discourse. Taking this perspective as a framework, the findings of discourse studies with a particular emphasis on right-hemisphere brain-damaged individuals are discussed. Neurolinguistic studies of discourse can be divided into four categories: (1) studies that focus primarily at providing a detailed description of the structural and interactional abilities of brain-damaged individuals, (2) studies that are mainly concerned with investigating the processing aspects of discourse, (3) studies that investigate the influence of cognitive systems such as attention or memory on discourse processing, and (4) studies that try to relate discourse processing mechanisms to underlying biological substrates or neurophysiological mechanisms. A quest is made for future research to base discourse studies on well-defined processing theories, to include different processing components and levels, and to systematically investigate the impact of facets of cognitive systems on such processing. Established methodological approaches should be complemented by electrophysiological procedures (such as the event related potentials technique) or functional imaging techniques (such as fMRI) to tackle relationships between discourse processing mechanisms, cognitive systems and underlying biological mechanisms. Consideration of the influence of biochemical processes (such as asymmetries of neurotransmitters, endocrine functions, or influence of pharmacological agents) on component processes may add to our insights.

The authors and editor of the special issue of Brain and Language: Pragmatics: Theoretical and Clinical Issues as well as the editor of Brain and Language framed some questions which were sent to and readily discussed by Noam Chomsky via e-mail.

This article presents an exploratory study investigating the possibility of predicting the time occurrence of a motor event related potential (ERP) from a kinematic analysis of human movements. Although the response-locked motor potential may link the ERP components to the recorded response, to our knowledge no previous attempt has been made to predict a priori (i.e. before any contact with the electroencephalographic data) the time occurrence of an ERP component based only on the modeling of an overt response. The proposed analysis relies on the delta-lognormal modeling of velocity, as proposed by the kinematic theory of rapid human movement used in several studies of motor control. Although some methodological aspects of this technique still need to be fine-tuned, the initial results showed that the model-based kinematic analysis allowed the prediction of the time occurrence of a motor command ERP in most participants in the experiment. The average map of the motor command ERPs showed that this signal was stronger in electrodes close to the contra-lateral motor area (Fz, FCz, FC1, and FC3). These results seem to support the claims made by the kinematic theory that a motor command is emitted at time t(0), the time reference parameter of the model. This article proposes a new time marker directly associated with a cerebral event (i.e. the emission of a motor command) that can be used for the development of new data analysis methodologies and for the elaboration of new experimental protocols based on ERP.

When people make errors in a discrimination task, a negative-going waveform can be observed in scalp-recorded EEG that has been coined the error-related negativity (ERN). We hypothesized that the ERN only occurs with slips, that is unwilled action errors, but not if an error is committed willingly and intentionally. We investigated the occurrence of the ERN in a choice reaction time task that has been shown to produce an ERN and in an error simulation task where subjects had to fake errors while the EEG was recorded. We observed a loss of the ERN when errors were committed in willed actions but not in unwilled actions thus supporting the idea that the production of the ERN is tied to slips in unwilled actions but not mistakes in willed actions.

Publisher Summary Evolutionary robotics is best described by looking at natural evolution and genes. Genes contain the information for the production of proteins, which make up the structure of cells and direct their activity. In humans, a gene is made up of a chain of nucleic acids, such as ACTGTCCA. The exact functions of some genes remain unclear, but in structural genes, each set of three letters represents a specific amino acid. Although it is becoming increasingly clear that humans are not solely the products of genes, they do essentially determine the complete blueprint from toe to brain. As the brain contains billions of neurons and many more connections among neurons that enable humans to move, perceive, learn, memorize, and communicate, it was only a logical next step to combine artificial neurons and create artificial neural networks. An artificial neuron with incoming and outgoing connections that relate it to other neurons is illustrated in the chapter. Many such neurons and interconnections make up a neural network. The output of a neuron is usually directed towards other neurons.

Disorders of language, spatial perception, attention, memory, calculation and praxis are a frequent consequence of acquired brain damage [in particular, stroke and traumatic brain injury (TBI)] and a major determinant of disability. The rehabilitation of aphasia and, more recently, of other cognitive disorders is an important area of neurological rehabilitation. We report here a review of the available evidence about effectiveness of cognitive rehabilitation. Given the limited number and generally low quality of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) in this area of therapeutic intervention, the Task Force considered, besides the available Cochrane reviews, evidence of lower classes which was critically analysed until a consensus was reached. In particular, we considered evidence from small group or single cases studies including an appropriate statistical evaluation of effect sizes. The general conclusion is that there is evidence to award a grade A, B or C recommendation to some forms of cognitive rehabilitation in patients with neuropsychological deficits in the post-acute stage after a focal brain lesion (stroke, TBI). These include aphasia therapy, rehabilitation of unilateral spatial neglect (ULN), attentional training in the post-acute stage after TBI, the use of electronic memory aids in memory disorders, and the treatment of apraxia with compensatory strategies. There is clearly a need for adequately designed studies in this area, which should take into account specific problems such as patient heterogeneity and treatment standardization.

When people detect their own errors in a discrimination task, a negative-going waveform can be observed in scalp-recorded EEG that has been coined the error-related negativity (Ne/ERN). Generation of the Ne/ERN has been associated with structures in the prefrontal cortex, especially the anterior cingulate region, but also the supplementary motor cortex and subcortical structures. There is some controversy as to whether the Ne/ERN is a necessary concomitant to error detection. We examined the Ne/ERN in five patients with damage to the medial prefrontal cortex, including the anterior cingulate region. Our findings support the implication of the rostral anterior cingulate in Ne/ERN production, but they also show that subjects can be aware of errors and yet not produce an Ne/ERN. Thus, error detection leads to the Ne/ERN process and damage to the anterior cingulate region may interrupt this relay, suggesting that error detection may be supported by circuits outside the anterior cingulate region.

We studied error-related processing using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Previous event-related potential studies have documented error negativity or error-related negativity after incorrect responses, with a suggested source in the anterior cingulate cortex or supplementary motor area. We compared activation elicited by correct and incorrect trials using auditory and visual choice-reaction time tasks. Source areas showing different activation patterns in correct and error conditions were mainly located in sensorimotor areas, both ipsi- and contralateral to the response, suggesting that activation of sensorimotor circuits accompanies error processing. Additional activation at various other locations suggests a distributed network of brain regions active during error-related processing. Activation specific to incorrect trials tended to occur later in MEG than EEG data, possibly indicating that EEG and MEG detect different neural networks involved in error-related processes.

Electronic journal (e-journal) publishing has started to change the ways we think about publishing. However, many scholars and scientists in the mind and brain sciences are still ignorant of the new possibilities and ongoing debates. This paper will provide a summary of the issues involved, give an update of the current discussion, and supply practical information on issues related to e-journal publishing and self-archiving relevant for the mind and brain sciences. Issues such as differences between traditional and e-journal publishing, open archive initiatives, worldwide conventions, quality control, costs involved in e-journal publishing, and copyright questions will be addressed. Practical hints on how to self-archive, how to submit to the e-journal Psycoloquy, how to create an open research archive, and where to find information relevant to e-publishing will be supplied.

The Internet is a decentralized network that connects networks of computers.In the last few years, information that can be obtained from the Internet has grown tremendously and new information is added continuously.Because of the rapid changes and growth of the Internet, it is impossible to give a comprehensive, up-to-date account of all the current resources that are helpful for the reader interested in neurolinguistics and related fields.The main purpose of this section is to provide a variety of information sources that can be used as a basis for continued browsing.Sites directly and indirectly relevant and related to neurolinguistics (such as linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, neurology, and so forth) will be cited.In this context, a word of caution is necessary: addresses which exist today on the Net may have disappeared by tomorrow.Still, we hope that the listing will help the “wired” reader to move around in neurolinguistic and related cyberspace in an efficient and time-saving way.

Assessment and rehabilitation tools play an important part in clinical neurolinguistics and in neurolinguistic research. Whereas information on nonelectronic tools and material is readily available, it is still laborious to obtain information on what is available in electronic form. The information listed in this chapter was obtained by placing a “want ad” in major Internet discussion lists, by performing Internet, database, and library catalog searches on the subject, by contacting publishers and authors, and last but not least by “word-of-mouth” information from researchers in the field. Despite our efforts, we received very little feedback concerning software aimed at non-English or non-German- speaking target groups. Consequently, our search may not have reached all publishers and authors, and available sources may have been overlooked. In order to improve this listing in the next edition of the Handbook, we would like to encourage readers to send us any information that seems suitable for inclusion in the next edition. In this context, we would like to point out that no evaluation of the content of the cited material has been made. Hence, neither the editors nor the publisher can endorse specific programs. Furthermore, most software was furnished us on a demo disk; thus we cannot attest to the functionality of the complete program.