Neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying language comprehension, production, and acquisition. It studies how the brain processes linguistic information at multiple levels. - Core Areas - Speech [[perception]] - decoding acoustic signals - Word recognition - accessing lexical representations - Sentence parsing - constructing syntactic structures - Semantic processing - extracting meaning - Discourse comprehension - integrating across sentences - Neural Systems - Broca's area - grammatical processing and production - Wernicke's area - semantic comprehension - Superior temporal gyrus - auditory processing - Inferior frontal gyrus - syntactic processing - Methods - Neuroimaging - fMRI, PET for brain activation during language tasks - EEG/MEG - temporal dynamics of language processing - Lesion studies - effects of brain damage on language - Behavioral experiments - reaction time, error patterns - Related Topics - [[Language]] - broader study of language systems - [[Cognitive Neuroscience]] - neural basis of cognition - [[Computational models]] - computational theories of language