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Language, Mind and Brain

Language is a complex mental faculty, recruiting and integrating several interacting representational and computational architectures in the mind. At the Language, Mind and Brain Lab (LaMB Lab) at New York University Abu Dhabi, we investigate the nature of the cognitive and neural architecture that supports the human language system and how it interfaces with other cognitive faculties. We combine insights from linguistic theory, processing models and what is known about their neurobiological underpinnings in order to guide our research questions.

Research Questions

  1. What is the nature of linguistic representations?
  2. How are these representations recruited and deployed in real-time language comprehension and production?
  3. What is the neural architecture underlying these representations and computational processes?

Research Methods

The lab houses several behavioral testing stations, as well as a 128-channel EEG system (BrainAmp DC, by BrainProducts, Germany). The lab is also affiliated with the Neuroscience of Language Lab, which houses a state-of-the-art 208-channel whole-head MEG system (by the Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Japan), allowing for unimodal MEG recordings as well as concurrent EEG-MEG recordings with up to 64 EEG channels. In addition, a state-of-the-art fMRI facility has halped expand the repertoire of brain imaging research that can be carried out in the lab.

 

"I study language, and language is something that happens very fast. We speak at a rate of about four words every second. There are a lot of areas of the brain related to the language network that we can try to isolate in the MRI. For me, it's a way to get a better sense of the complex network that the brain uses to make language happen."

-Diogo Almeida, associate professor of psychology