Understanding the behavioral-methodology/language-processing interface.

The stated goal of this Special Issue (namely, addressing a key issue for the study of language and the brain in the next century) would seem to call for some type of linkage of behavioral research issues with brain research issues. Thus, dealing with concerns such as the contribution of the right hemisphere to language processing; the nature of the integration of LH and RH language information into a final ‘‘percept’’ during comprehension; the true underlying role of Broca’s area in language processing; or, linking human genetic description to potential language and/or language–brain functions, would be critical and obviously meritorious goals for new millennium research. However, while research on the brain–behavior link is of obvious and central importance, a far more fundamental issue requires resolution before behavior–brain relationships can be fruitfully examined. Simply put, we need to understand, precisely, how our behavioral methodologies reflect on, and interact with, the language processes we are attempting to study and define. While this issue may not appear at first blush to be as ‘‘new-age’’ as, for example, providing brain imaging maps of putative language functions, it is ever-current and arguably far more fundamental. The reason is simple: our behavioral research forms the basis upon which we define and select the inventory of language functions and properties we take to constitute comprehension and production. Our entire behavioral classification and description of language functions is thus dependent on knowing how well the methods by which we examine such putative functions