Why Brain Oscillations Are Improving Our Understanding of Language

We explore the potential that brain oscillations have for improving our understanding of how language develops, is processed in the brain, and initially evolved in our species. The different synchronization patterns of brain rhythms can account for different perceptual and cognitive functions, and we argue that this includes language. We aim to address six distinct questions—the What, How, Where, Who, Why, and When questions—pertaining to oscillatory investigations of language. Language deficits found in clinical conditions like autism, schizophrenia and dyslexia can be satisfactorily construed in terms of an abnormal, disorder-specific pattern of brain rhythmicity. Lastly, an eco-evo-devo approach to language is defended with explicit reference to brain oscillations, embracing a framework that considers language evolution to be the result of a changing environment surrounding developmental paths of the primate brain.

• Publication year

  2019

• Venue

  Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience

• Publication date

  2019-04-14

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Linguistics, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3389/fnbeh.2019.00190PMID 31551725PMCID 6736581
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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