This dissertation contains several projects, each addressing different questions with different techniques. In chapter 1, I argue that they are unified thematically by their goal of "scaling up psycholinguistics"; they are all aimed at analyzing large data-sets using tools that reveal patterns to propose and test mechanism-neutral hypotheses about…

How long does it take the human mind to grasp the idea when hearing or reading a sentence? Neurophysiological methods looking directly at the time course of brain activity indexes of comprehension are critical for finding the answer to this question. As the dominant cognitive approaches, models of serial/cascaded and parallel processing, make…

We develop the view that the involvement of mirror neurons in embodied experience grounds brain structures that underlie language, but that many other brain regions are involved. We stress the cooperation between the dorsal and ventral streams in praxis and language. Both have perceptual and motor schemas but the perceptual schemas in the dorsal…

Real-time language comprehension is a principal cognitive ability and thereby relates to central properties of the human cognitive architecture. Yet how do the presumably universal cognitive and neural substrates of language processing relate to the astounding diversity of human languages (over 5,000)? The authors present a neurocognitive model of…

Connectionist (parallel distributed processing) modeling provides a new way to approach the neurological study of language. This method focuses on the interplay between a computational model and the appropriate neurological, neuropsychological, and speech and language data, couched in connectionist mechanisms that map naturally to what is known of…

Research shows that information received by one brain hemisphere (e.g., auditory messages entering the right ear) is processed and transferred to the other, interpretation being a combination of right and left brain processing, with high intensity messages shifting control from the left to the right brain. If information is received by one…

This theoretical study of second language learning is divided into eight sections: (1) "Elements of a Theory of Second Language Learning," (2) "Second Language Learning in the Light of Neurophysiological Findings," (3) "Cognitive Strategies in the Second Language Learning Process," (4) "On Accounting for the Role Played by Affective Factors in…