Background:

Individual variability in online and offline language comprehension has received a lot of recent attention. The collection of articles for this research topic will go beyond documenting variability by elucidating how different adults accomplish similar language comprehension outcomes via different mechanisms. Studies on adult language comprehension using a variety of empirical techniques and addressing different aspects of language are welcome. We are especially interested in studies that shed light on how different brain areas and networks and different cognitive mechanisms can be used to achieve similar lexical and sentence comprehension. Together the collection of papers will highlight flexibility in how the human brain successfully understands language.

Goals:

1. Is there a single set of regions used for language comprehension? Or do different individuals use different regions?
2. Do different individuals accomplish language comprehension using different cues or mechanisms? For example, do some people understand sentences using semantics and others using syntax? Do some people rely on executive functions and others less so? Etc.
3. Is there variability within an individual on which mechanisms and brain regions are used? If so, which contextual or individual factors explain this variability?

Scope & Information for Authors:

We invite papers that study a) adults, b) language comprehension, and c) native language processing. Studies involving a variety of behavioral and neuroimaging techniques, including but not limited to eye-tracking, fMRI, ERP, TMS, eCog, and behavioral measurements, are welcome. Exploratory research that suggests useful future directions may be suitable for submission as long as the paper includes original empirical data and rigorous statistical analysis. Papers could include 1 or more experiments. Studies of atypical populations, including case studies, are welcome as long as the results are more broadly generalizable in suggesting principles of variability in language organization that might extend to healthy adults. Because the emphasis is on mechanistic variability, studies showing differences in underlying mechanisms for similar behavioral outcomes will be especially useful.

Submit your idea

Impact

Frontiers in Language Sciences

Submit your idea

Impact