TY - JOUR

T1 - Experience-dependent brain development as a key to understanding the language system

AU - Westermann, Gert

N1 - This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Westermann, G. (2016), Experience-Dependent Brain Development as a Key to Understanding the Language System. Topics in Cognitive Science, 8: 446–458. doi: 10.1111/tops.12194 which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tops.12194/abstract This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.

PY - 2016/4

Y1 - 2016/4

N2 - An influential view of the nature of the language system is that of an evolved biological system in which a set of rules is combined with a lexicon that contains the words of the language together with a representation of their context. Alternative views, usually based on connectionist modeling, attempt to explain the structure of language on the basis of complex associative processes. Here I put forward a third view that stresses experience-dependent structural development of the brain circuits supporting language as a core principle of the organization of the language system. On this view, embodied in a recent neuroconstructivist neural network of past tense development and processing, initial domain-general predispositions enable the development of functionally specialized brain structures through interactions between experience-dependent brain development and statistical learning in a structured environment. Together, these processes shape a biological adult language system that appears to separate into distinct mechanism for processing rules and exceptions, whereas in reality those subsystems co-develop and interact closely. This view puts experience-dependent brain development in response to a specific language environment at the heart of understanding not only language development but adult language processing as well.

AB - An influential view of the nature of the language system is that of an evolved biological system in which a set of rules is combined with a lexicon that contains the words of the language together with a representation of their context. Alternative views, usually based on connectionist modeling, attempt to explain the structure of language on the basis of complex associative processes. Here I put forward a third view that stresses experience-dependent structural development of the brain circuits supporting language as a core principle of the organization of the language system. On this view, embodied in a recent neuroconstructivist neural network of past tense development and processing, initial domain-general predispositions enable the development of functionally specialized brain structures through interactions between experience-dependent brain development and statistical learning in a structured environment. Together, these processes shape a biological adult language system that appears to separate into distinct mechanism for processing rules and exceptions, whereas in reality those subsystems co-develop and interact closely. This view puts experience-dependent brain development in response to a specific language environment at the heart of understanding not only language development but adult language processing as well.

KW - Experience-dependent brain development

KW - Neuroconstructivism

KW - English past tense

KW - Connectionist modeling

KW - Emergent modularity

KW - Massive modularity

U2 - 10.1111/tops.12194

DO - 10.1111/tops.12194

M3 - Journal article

VL - 8

SP - 446

EP - 458

JO - Topics in Cognitive Science

JF - Topics in Cognitive Science

SN - 1756-8757

IS - 2

ER -