Neurolinguistics is the study of how language is represented in the brain

 Neurolinguistics is the study of how language is represented in the brain: that is, how and where our brains store our knowledge of the language (or languages) that we speak, understand, read, and write, what happens in our brains as we acquire that knowledge, and what happens as we use it in our everyday lives.

Neurolinguistics is the branch of linguistics that analyzes the language impairments that follow brain damage in terms of the principles of language structure. The term “neurolinguistics” is neutral about the linguistic theory it refers to, but any linguistically based approach to aphasia therapy is based on the principle that language has an internal organization that can be described by a system of rules. The neurolinguistics approach stresses the role of language in aphasia and analyzes it according to principles of theoretical linguistics.

The first linguistically based typology of aphasic impairments is probably that of Roman Jakobson (1964), although Alajouanine and colleagues (1939, 1964) had already stressed the role of some linguistic phenomena in aphasia. Many authors have underlined the importance of linguistic theory for aphasia therapy (Hatfield, 1972; MacMahon, 1972; Hatfield and Shewell, 1983; Lesser, 1989; Miller, 1989), but linguistic analyses were not carried out in great detail until interest in aphasia expanded beyond the field of neurology to disciplines such as linguistics, speech−language pathology, and psychology.

Neurolinguistics

Neurolinguistics, the relation between language and the structure and function of the nervous system, is a relatively new field in psychology, which may give the interviewer two additional advantages Neurolinguistics factors explain the probable link between eye movement and the brain's language processing mechanisms.

This explanation distinguishes among the idea and information processing modes through which we function and suggests that each of us has preferences in the way in which we process information. The three primary modes of processing information are:

Visual

Auditory

Kinesthetic

when a person attempts to discern a faint sound, he generally looks toward the ear closest to the sound. After engaging in this movement a few hundred thousand times, over many years of development, the individual's brain becomes “hard-wired,” or programmed, to reflexively look toward his ear when trying to hear or remember a sound. The same thing occurs with vision and kinesics. A person will survey a picture by moving his eyes up and across the picture to register its composition, colors, and size. Again, once the individual does this a few hundred thousand times, it too becomes programmed into the individual's psychomotor pathways. Kinesis thinkers are programmed by looking down to their abdomens when the butterflies of nervousness and fear are present.

Though everyone does process in all three modes, each person has a preferred mode. Careful observation can provide information about someone's preferred mode of processing and can simplify the process of gaining rapport with the suspect, by enabling the interviewer to frame comments and questions in that mode. The corollary feature is that eye movement during communication becomes another illustrator/adaptor to be observed

To ascertain the suspect's neurolinguistic frame, the interviewer must observe eye movement. In the visual processing mode, the eyes are looking up to the right or left. In the auditory processing mode, the eyes are horizontally looking right or left. In the kinesthetic processing mode, the eyes look down, as stimuli are generated within the body itself.

The interviewer can identify the suspect's dominant mode by observing eye movements and determining whether they fit the category of visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. An interviewer can also listen carefully and identify a person's mode of preference by the suspect's language. An interviewee who asks, “Can't you see what I mean?” is linguistically signaling that she prefers the visual mode. That allows the interviewer to adapt to the perceptual mode by wording questions and responses more effectively: “I see what you're saying”; “Do you see my point?” If the suspect prefers the auditory mode, the interviewer might say, “Listen to what I'm saying!” “Hear the case facts that show you are involved!” If the interviewee's eye movement suggests a kinesthetic processing mode, the interviewer could say, “I think you feel bad about what happened. Can you get a handle on what happened? I want your sense of the events.”

Another advantage in identifying the suspect's neurolinguistic mode is to confirm that there is agreement between the processing mode and the mode applicable to the question. If mode expectation and mode demonstration, which is that which is anticipated and what is actually observed, are not in agreement, then something is wrong, and the interviewer should be alert

Eyes to the right in the visual or auditory mode indicates that the suspect is “constructing,” and eyes to the left indicate he or she is using “recall” Thus, if the interviewer asks a question that requires visual recall (eyes up and to the left), and the suspect enters a construction mode (eyes up and to the right) instead, there is a good chance that he is either editing information or fabricating his answer. Neurolinguistics Eye Cues