Psycholinguistic research: Implications and applications Edited by Doris Aaronson and Robert W. Rieber (review)

250 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 57, NUMBER 1 (1981) The second section of NSC is devoted to the neural organization of language processing in humans, as inferred from various experimental techniques. George Ojemann and Catherine Mateer ('Cortical and subcortical organization of human communication: Evidence from stimulation studies') discuss the effects of electrical stimulation of various areas of the brain on naming performance, the production of speech sounds, the production of non-verbal oral-facial movements, and a variety of other linguistic tasks by patients undergoing brain surgery. This chapter provides a valuable review of recent advances in this area of research, which is suggesting fairly wide distribution of language function in the human brain. Jason Brown's chapter('Language representation in the brain'), while maddeningly long and often somewhat peripheral to the focus of NSC, nonetheless provides a valuable survey of language pathologies in humans, and offers a novel approach to the classification and analysis of such pathologies and their underlying cortical and subcortical bases. Doreen Kimura ('Neuromotor mechanisms in the evolution of human communication ') discusses a stimulating model for the evolution of neural control of speech in humans as having its basis in the evolution of a gestural communication system (cf. Hewes 1973), particularly in terms ofthe relation between oral and manual control systems as manifested in general left-hemisphere specialization for praxis function. The final section purports to move the discussion into an evolutionary context. Richard Passingham ('Specialization and the language areas') considers the cognitive abilities of nonhuman primates: in particular, he provides a review of the areas of speech perception, auditory -visual association, and a general (although perhaps somewhat uncritical) discussion ofthe 'language' learning achievements ofchimpanzees in recent years. The final two chapters are by the editors. The first ('Behavioral and neurobiological aspects of primate vocalization and facial expression') provides a summary of behavioral and neural aspects of primate vocalization , in which S&R argue convincingly that the traditional notion that human vocalization is under voluntary cortical control, whereas primate (and other mammalian) vocal control is limbically-mediated and involuntary, is probably not warranted, and that these extremes may only reflect quantitative and not qualitative differences. S&R provide a valuable review ofethological and developmental factors in their arguments. The final chapter ('Requisites for language: Interspecific and evolutionary aspects'), perhaps the most ambitious in NSC, discusses evolutionary aspects of the emergence of speech and language in humans; it includes a stimulating synthesis ofthe relevant cognitive, productive, and perceptual factors necessary for approaching the question of the origin and evolution of human language. S&R occasionally display slight misunderstandings ofthe arguments surrounding some ofthis work; thus it is not at all clear that the fact that baboons 'utilize' formants in vocal production (Andrew 1976) provides a counter-example to Lieberman 's (1975) theory of vocal-tract shape and its evolutionary significance in the emergence of speech in humans. However, this chapter is, by and large, the best summary currently available of current discussions about the evolution of human language. My only negative comment concerns the format of the references, which seems more appropriate for a medicaljournal than a published volume. Happily, this observation does not detract from the fact that NSC provides a valuable addition to current thought in this area, and reflects an ambitious attempt to synthesize a considerable amount of data and speculation. The volume is highly recommended to anyone remotely interested in the evolution of human communicative mechanisms, and should in fact be required for anyone concerned with what exactly is unique about human language. [Robert D. Buhr, University of California, San Diego.] Psycholinguistic research: Implications and applications. Edited by Doris Aaronson and Robert W. Rieber. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1979. Pp. x, 534. $29.95. This book could have been titled A progress report for psycholinguistics: Plato to the present . It portrays the progress through a series of confrontations. As George Miller points out in the foreword, 'behaviorists have it out with cognitive psychologists, psychologists criticize linguists and vice versa, while the basic and applied contigents exhibit their age-old disdain.' Anyone with strong interests in psychology and language will find the book rewarding; but re- BOOK NOTICES 251 searchers and advanced undergraduates with an interest in application will find it especially...