Brain, Mind and Language Functional Architectures

Language as a Regulation Contour of Brain and Mental Processes

According to the tradition of the Russian psychophysiological school founded by Luria (ref. [8]) and Vygotsky (see ref. [9]) psychology as systemic property of physiology can be studied only by considering the special genesis of all mental functions – the “regulation language contour” which is the highest level of the brain organization of all mental processes. This idea was supported by the work of another great Russian psychophysiologist Ukhtomsky [10] who developed the concept of higher cortical dominantas where language/speech is considered as a cortical dominanta of a special kind which can change the whole behaviour of the human. Indeed, from neuropsychology we know that during aphasia not only is speech disturbed but the whole behaviour of the patient also changes. For example, such patients are characterized by the disruption of higher forms of action.

Recent studies bring experimental evidence that language can restructure cognition [11,12]. Findings from recent neuroimaging studies suggest that activation of the speech motor system during lipreading enhance speech perception by tuning, in a top-down fashion, speech-sound processing in the superior aspects of the posterior temporal lobe (see contribution of Jääskeläinen to this Special Issue). Kobayashi et al. [13] demonstrated that people recruit different linguistic and cognitive resources depending upon the language used to process Theory of mind¹, thus suggesting that switching language switches mind (see contribution of Kobayashi Frank to this Special Issue). From an evolutionary point of view, the progressive evolution of language from a simple form to a more sophisticated one (speech, writing, mathematics, science, computing and finally the Internet) can be seen as a response to the chaos of the information overload that each form of language contributed to generate: a response based essentially on a continuous re-shaping and development of human cognitive capacities (see contribution of Logan to this Special Issue).

Language as a Unique Human Phenomenon

Besides the fact that language/speech plays an important role as a regulation contour of all mental processes, it is also a unique human phenomenon [2,14]. According to Vygotsky [9,15] the human brain is characterized by specific relations between structural and functional units of neural activity which are mediated by language/speech (high cortical dominantas by Ukhtomsky [10]). Thus, the human brain has a new systemo-localisation principle according to which it became an organ of human consciousness. Specifics of dominant mechanisms of the human brain are determined by extracortical genesis and ontological development of the human mind on the basis of new semantic codes of information perception and processing [16].

Experimental evidence, reviewed by Mehler et al. [2], suggests that only humans, and no other animals, acquire the language spoken in the surrounds and only human infants use the acoustic properties of speech to acquire grammar. Even though apes and also dogs have ‘lexicons’ that can attain a few dozen words [17,18], such abilities are insufficient to enable non-human animals to construct a grammar comparable to that of humans. ‘Ape language’ should not be called a language, because there is no convincing evidence of syntactic structures or word orders in ape language. According to critical assessment of a chimpanzee’s signs, the mean length of each utterance is no more than 1.6 words, and even longer utterances lack rule-governed combinations of signs [19]. Even when trained to use communication systems, apes, dolphins or parrots do not master anything remotely approaching the power and versatility of human language. One of the most obvious differences is the almost total lack of what George Miller [20] called combinatorial productivity – our ability to recombine words or syllables in new ways to derive entirely new meanings. And none of these communication systems have more than tiny amounts of syntax, whereas grammatical rules of one sort or another are universal in human languages (a mathematical explanation – based on a joint thought -language architecture – of why animals do not talk and think as people do, is given by Perlovsky and Ilin in this Special Issue).

Language as a Governor of Human Behaviour and Brain Operations

Language is not only means of communication and the basis for verbal, discursive thinking, but also an important means of governance of human behaviour. Language mediates different components of practical actions [21]. For example, the grammatical class of words affects visual analysis and motor control differently [22]. Moreover, language/speech creates new forms of attention, memory, imagination, thinking and action. In other words, the system of words is a powerful factor which forms mental activity [15]. Inner speech² has been shown to be involved in such important processes for behaviour as verbal self-guidance and self-regulation [24], problem-solving [25], planning [26], and memory [27]. Some psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression are mediated by dysfunctional self-talk [28] (for a review, see Ref. [29]).

Recent findings support the simulation based theories of language processing in an embodied framework³, and provide a strong reason to link findings from the cognitive neuroscience of language processing to the neurophysiology of eye (and generally motor) movement behaviour (see contribution of Singh and Mishra to this Special Issue).

Word as a “signal of signals” [31] is mediated by a strong dominanta’ mechanism (Ref. [10], p. 259). Heard or verbalized word creates a special dominant setting of integrated brain areas; this dominant setting constitutes a new integral subjective image and forms simultaneous modification of perception [10,32]. These and many other observations point to the joint brain-thought-language functional architecture. For the elaboration of this issue see contribution of Benedetti, Marchetti, Fingelkurts and Fingelkurts to this Special Issue. Mathematical modelling of joint thought-language architecture resolves long-standing issues as to how the brain learns correct words-object associations; and explains a contradiction between human ability for rational thoughtful decisions and the irrationality of human thinking (see contribution of Perlovsky and Ilin to this Special Issue).

It is important to note that structures of consciousness as a “reflection of reflection” in some sign form do not simply isomorphically duplicate the initial content, but add to and enrich it by introducing new connections and relations. Behind the word there is a collective public experience which is concentrated in the crystallized form of meaning [33]. Due to language humans can acquire a knowledge of each other and the experience of previous generations (see contribution of Logan to this Special Issue). The existence of grammatical language structures which are isomorphic to action structures enables humans to perform mental experimenting and to acquire new knowledge mentally.

Language as an Organizational Factor of Ontogenesis of Mentation and Behaviour

During ontogenesis new psychological systems are formed on the basis of verbalization of attention, memory, actions and thinking: for example, some aspects of language highly influence the development of Theory of Mind capacities (see the contribution by Kobayashi Frank to this Special Issue). Thus, according to Vygotsky [15] after a child has developed a language, he/she adds to the first-order stimuli (manipulation of objects), stimuli of the second-order, which are not the objects themselves, but are the means for organizing and planning human behaviour. This process results in a total reconstruction of all the mental functions of a human, giving him/her freedom of behaviour in relation to situation. Hence, the human being is freeing himself from the property of animal perception – being a “slave of a visual field”. With the help of “planning speech”⁴ the conception about future (an actual future field) is inserted in human activity and, thus, behavioural impulsivity is controlled. Human conscious awareness, according to Vygotsky [15], is characterized by the fact that it is not based on the limitations imposed by the simultant structure of the visual field (which is a characteristic of animal cognition), but rather by the successive structure of “the verbalized dynamic field of attention” which is achieved on the basis of inclusion of the regulation speech contour: the “attention field” is separated from the “perception field” and is unfolding in time dynamics.

New forms of human behaviour are originated on the basis of inclusion of speech formulas of past and present situations in a single focus of attention. “Speech forms operation based on laws that are different from those characteristic of actual action: it joints, unites, synthesizes past and present” (Ref. [9], p. 48). “Thus, the sign initially acts as a means of social connection in the behaviour of the child, as an intermental function; subsequently it becomes a means of controlling his/her own behaviour and he/she just transfers the social relation to a subject inward into his personality” (Ref. [9], p. 41).

A review of experimental evidence [2] suggests that humans are endowed with a species-specific disposition to acquire natural language. Thus, irrespective of whether the learner is hearing and seeing, deaf or even blind, he/she will still attain a grammar that is as rich and complex as we expect it in humans without sensory filters (see [35,36] amongst others). Moreover, the infant’s brain preferentially processes speech, rather than non-speech stimuli [37]. And, finally, the work of Dehaene-Lambertz et al. [38] showed that responsible cortical regions are active well before the infant has acquired the native language.