The Neural Theory of Language (NTL) project is an interdisciplinary research effort to answer the question:

How does the brain compute the mind?

More specific research questions include:

• How can the brain -- a highly structured network of neurons -- support thought and language? How do the specific neural structures of the human brain shape the nature of thought and language?
  
  
• How are language and thought related to other neural systems, including perception, motor control, and social cognition?
  
  
• What are the computational properties of neural systems?
  
  
• What are the applications of neural computing?
  
  

Among the tools we use to address these questions are:

• Converging constraints: We draw on ideas from computer science, linguistics, cognitive science, and psychology.
  
  
• Cognitive modeling: We build models of cognitive phenomena, including simulations of language and learning.
  
  
• Reductionist requirement: Theories and models must have biologically plausible interpretations.

Cognition and Language cognitive mechanisms, linguistic phenomena (spatial relations, metaphor, aspect, epidosic memory, frames, constructions)

Computation formalisms, data structures, algorithms (executing schemas, feature structures, maps, belief nets)

Structured Connectionism distributed networks of units (temporal binding, recruitment learning)

Computational Neurobiology models of neuronal structures and processes (hippocampal models)

Biology biological and neurophysiology structures and processes (fMRI imaging)