文档介绍：Preface
The present volume consists of chapters by participants in the Language and Space
conferenceheld in Tucson, Arizona, 16- 19 March 1994. In most casesthe chapters
have been written to reflect the numerous interactions at the conference, and for that
reason we hope the book is more than just pilation of isolated papers. The
conferencewas truly interdisciplinary, including such domains as neurophysiology,
neuropsychology, psychology, anthropology, cognitive science, and linguistics. Neural
mechanisms, developmental process es, and cultural factors were all grist for the
mill , as were semantics, syntax, and cognitive maps.
The conference had its beginnings in a seemingly innocent conversation in 1990
betweentwo new colleaguesat the University of Arizona (Bloom and Peterson), who
wondered about the genesisof left-right confusions. One of them (MAP.) assumed
that theseconfusions reflecteda languageproblem ; the other (P. B.) was quite certain
that they reflected a visual perceptual problem. Curiously, it was the perception
researcherwho saw this issueas being mainly linguistic and the language researcher
who saw it as mainly perceptual. In true academic form they decided that the best
way to arrive at an answer would be to hold a seminar on the topic, which they did
the very next year. Their seminar on language and spacewas attended by graduate
students, postdoctoral fellows, and many faculty membersfrom a variety of departments
. Rather than answering the question that led to its inception, the seminar
raised other questions: How do we represent space? What aspectsof spacecan we
talk about? How do we learn to talk about space? And what role does culture play in
all these matters? One seminar could not explore all of theseissues in any depth; an
enlarged group of interested colleagues( the four co editors) felt that perhaps several
workshops might.
The Cognitive NeuroscienceProgram at the University of Arizona, i