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RESEARCH PRODUCT

The Argument Dependency Model

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This chapter summarizes the architecture of the extended Argument Dependency Model (eADM), a model of language comprehension that aspires toward neurobiological plausibility. It combines design principles from neurobiology with insights on cross-linguistic diversity. Like other current models, the eADM posits that auditory language processing proceeds along two distinct streams in the brain emanating from auditory cortex: the antero-ventral and postero-dorsal streams. Both streams are organized hierarchically and information processing takes place in a cascaded fashion. Each stream has functionally unified computational properties congruent with its role in primate audition. While the dorsal stream performs sequence processing (i.e., noncommutative combinatorics) in temporal receptive windows of increasing size, the ventral stream performs dependency formation (commutative combinatorics) comprising the recognition of increasingly complex (i.e., feature-rich) auditory objects and their combinations. The chapter discusses how these assumptions can derive a range of neuroanatomical and neurophysiological findings.