This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the nature of attentional and visual processes involved in language comprehension. Key concerns include how linguistic and non-linguistic processes jointly determine language comprehension and production and how the linguistic system interfaces with perceptual systems and attention. Language scientists have traditionally considered language in isolation from other cognitive and perceptual systems such as attention, vision and memory. In recent years, however, it has become increasingly clear that language comprehension must be studied within interaction contexts. The study of multimodal interactions and attentional processes during language processing has thus become an important theoretical focus that guides many research programs in psycholinguistics and related fields.

Re-examines frequency, entrenchment and salience, three foundational concepts in usage-based linguistics, through the prism of learning, memory, and attention.

The brain ... There is no other part of the human anatomy that is so intriguing. How does it develop and function and why does it sometimes, tragically, degenerate? The answers are complex. In Discovering the Brain, science writer Sandra Ackerman cuts through the complexity to bring this vital topic to the public. The 1990s were declared the "Decade of the Brain" by former President Bush, and the neuroscience community responded with a host of new investigations and conferences. Discovering the Brain is based on the Institute of Medicine conference, Decade of the Brain: Frontiers in Neuroscience and Brain Research. Discovering the Brain is a "field guide" to the brainâ€"an easy-to-read discussion of the brain's physical structure and where functions such as language and music appreciation lie. Ackerman examines: How electrical and chemical signals are conveyed in the brain. The mechanisms by which we see, hear, think, and pay attentionâ€"and how a "gut feeling" actually originates in the brain. Learning and memory retention, including parallels to computer memory and what they might tell us about our own mental capacity. Development of the brain throughout the life span, with a look at the aging brain. Ackerman provides an enlightening chapter on the connection between the brain's physical condition and various mental disorders and notes what progress can realistically be made toward the prevention and treatment of stroke and other ailments. Finally, she explores the potential for major advances during the "Decade of the Brain," with a look at medical imaging techniquesâ€"what various technologies can and cannot tell usâ€"and how the public and private sectors can contribute to continued advances in neuroscience. This highly readable volume will provide the public and policymakersâ€"and many scientists as wellâ€"with a helpful guide to understanding the many discoveries that are sure to be announced throughout the "Decade of the Brain."

This is at once a review and a summary of the tremendous advances that have been made in recent years on the effect of attention on visual perception. This broad-ranging volume will appeal to vision scientists as well as to those involved in using visual processes in computer animations, display design or the sensory systems of machines. Physiologists and neuroscientists interested in any aspect of sensory or motor processes will also find it very useful.

This title focuses on vision as an active process, rather than a passive activity and provides an integrated account of seeing and looking. The authors give a thorough description of basic details of the visual and oculomotor systems necessary to understand active vision.

Spoken Word Recognition covers the entire range of processes involved in recognizing spoken words - both in and out of context. It brings together a number of essays dealing with important theoretical questions raised by the study of spoken word recognition - among them, how do we understand fluent speech as efficiently and effortlessly as we do? What are the mental processes and representations involved when we recognize spoken words? How do these differ from those involved in reading written words? What information is stored in our mental lexicon and how is it structured? What do linguistic and computational theories tell us about these psychological processes and representations?The multidisciplinary presentation of work by phoneticians, linguists, psychologists, and computer scientists reflects the growing interest in spoken word recognition from a number of different perspectives. It is a natural consequence of the mediating role that lexical representations and processes play in language understanding, linking sound with meaning.Following the editors' introduction, the contributions and their authors are: Acoustic-Phonetic Representation in Word Recognition (David B. Pisoni and Paul A. Luce). Phonological Parsing and Lexical Retrieval (Kenneth W. Church). Parallel Processing in Spoken Word Recognition (William D. Marslen-Wilson). A Reader's View of Listening (Dianne C. Bradley and Kenneth I. Forster). Prosodic Structure and Spoken Word Recognition (Francois Grosjean and James Paul Gee). Structure in Auditory Word Recognition (Lyn Frazier). The Mental Representation of the Meaning of Words (P. N. Johnson-Laird). Context Effects in Lexical Processing (Michael K. Tanenhaus and Margery M. Lucas).Uli H. Frauenfelder is a researcher with the Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik, and Lorraine Komisarjevsky Tyler is a professor in the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge. Spoken Word Recognition is in a series that is derived from special issues of Cognition: International Journal of Cognitive Science, edited by Jacques Mehler. A Bradford Book.

David Bohm was one of the foremost scientific thinkers and philosophers of our time. Although deeply influenced by Einstein, he was also, more unusually for a scientist, inspired by mysticism. Indeed, in the 1970s and 1980s he made contact with both J. Krishnamurti and the Dalai Lama whose teachings helped shape his work. In both science and philosophy, Bohm's main concern was with understanding the nature of reality in general and of consciousness in particular. In this classic work he develops a theory of quantum physics which treats the totality of existence as an unbroken whole. Writing clearly and without technical jargon, he makes complex ideas accessible to anyone interested in the nature of reality.

In the past few years, there has been an explosion of eye movement research in cognitive science and neuroscience. This has been due to the availability of 'off the shelf' eye trackers, along with software to allow the easy acquisition and analysis of eye movement data. Accompanying this has been a realisation that eye movement data can be informative about many different aspects of perceptual and cognitive processing. Eye movements have been used to examine the visual and cognitive processes underpinning a much broader range of human activities, including, language production, dialogue, human computer interaction, driving behaviour, sporting performance, and emotional states. Finally, in the past thirty years, there have been real advances in our understanding of the neural processes that underpin eye movement behaviour. The Oxford Handbook of Eye Movements provides the first comprehensive review of the entire field of eye movement research. In over fifty chapters, it reviews the developments that have so far taken place, the areas actively being researched, and looks at how the field is likely to devlop in the coming years. The first section considers historical and background material, before moving onto section 2 on the neural basis of eye movements. The third and fourth sections looks at visual cognition and eye movements and eye movement pathology and development. The final sections consider eye movements and reading and language processing and eye movements. Bringing together cutting edge research from and international team of leading psychologists, neuroscientists, and vision researchers, this book is the definitive reference work in this field.

Publisher Description

This original volume examines the interface between attentional and linguistic processes in humans from the perspectives of psycholinguistics and cognitive science. It systematically explores how autonomy and automaticity are reflected during language processing in a variety of situations. A true, mechanistic explanation of how humans process language would require a complete understanding of the interface language has with important cognitive systems like attention, memory, as well as with vision. Interdisciplinary work in this area has so far not been able to generate a substantial theoretical position on this issue. This volume therefore looks at different language processing domains, such as speaking, listening, reading, as well as discourse and text processing, to evaluate the role attention plays in such performances; and also at how often linguistic inputs affect attentional processing. In this sense, it proposes that the attention--language interface is bidirectional. It also considers applied issues like language disorders, bilingualism and illiteracy, where the attention--language interface seems especially relevant as a theoretical apparatus for research investigations. Therefore, this volume brings closer theoretical explanations from the language sciences and cognitive sciences. It argues that language processing is multi-modal in its very essence and many conceptual structures in language evolve out of a complex interplay among participating cognitive systems such as attention and memory, supported by vision and audition.