Psicolinguística

Psicolinguística is an interdisciplinary field that studies the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend, and produce language. It draws on insights from linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, and computer science. The primary goal of psicolinguística is to understand how language is represented in the mind and how it is processed.

Key areas of investigation within psicolinguística include language acquisition, which examines how infants and children learn their first language and how adults acquire subsequent languages. It also explores language comprehension, investigating how people understand spoken and written words, sentences, and discourse. Furthermore, psicolinguística delves into language production, analyzing how thoughts are translated into spoken or written language, including the processes of planning, formulating, and articulating speech.

Another significant area is the study of language disorders, such as aphasia, dyslexia, and stuttering, to understand the cognitive and neurological underpinnings of these conditions. Researchers in psicolinguística often employ experimental methods, including reaction time studies, eye-tracking, brain imaging techniques (like fMRI and EEG), and computational modeling, to test their hypotheses about language processing and representation. The field seeks to bridge the gap between the abstract rules of language described by linguists and the concrete cognitive mechanisms that allow humans to use language effectively.