New Directions in Psycholinguistics and Communication Sciences: Neurocognitive Processes and Genetic Bases of Human Communication

Abstract:

The aim of this article is to review and/or redefine key concepts, theories and new advances in Psycholinguistics and Communication Sciences. Research within Psycholinguistics and Communication Sciences is facing the challenge of discovering the genetic bases and the neurocognitive processes involved in communication. This article reviews established theories and address new issues and techniques from a genetic and psychophysiology (e.g., fMRI and ERPs) approaches. The use of these techniques in adults, children and population with communication disorders as Specific Language Impairment is also analyzed. The future in Psycholinguistics and Communication Sciences is very promising by incorporating, to the cognitive-behavioral methods, the psychophysiology and genetic techniques within a cross-cultural framework.

Introduction:

Psycholinguistics and Communication Sciences have witnessed tremendous growth for the last decade or two. Topics of research have been terrifically diversified and obvious growth has been reflected in the literature as we explore the genetic bases of communication and the associated neurocognitive processes involved.

To define communication, linguistic elements need to be addressed. All definitions of language must also include a communicative function (Ellis, 1999). Language is essentially a system of communication. Language may be defined as a plurality of signs of the same nature, whose primary function is communication among organisms (Hierro S. Pescador, 1986). Within this broad definition, human language is the most complex system.

Communication is even more vast than language. Several communication models have been proposed after the classical linear model of communication by Shannon and Weaver (1949), based on an engineering approach. Their model included important basic elements of communication; source of information, transmitter, message, channel, noise, receiver and destination. However, two more elements needed to be included in a schematic system of communication; feedback and context.

In interactive communicative processes, interlocutors take turns in their alternative roles as encoders and decoders (Figure 1). For example, encoders (speakers/writers), through their neurocognitive processes and considering the context, produce messages for "decoders" (listeners/readers). Decoders, thanks to their neurocognitive processes and look at the context, receive the meaning of the message (or "referent"). Immediately after the initial exchange, the decoder gives feedback by encoding another message to the initial encoder, who then becomes the decoder. Nowadays, the research on Psycholinguistics and Communication Sciences is facing the challenge of discovering not only the neurocognitive processes that are involved in a successful communication (see Brown & Hagoort, 1999; Kutas, Federmeier, Coulson, King, & M...