This chapter introduces what I call the ‘predictive turn,’ in which cognitive processes traditionally described in terms of remembering the past are reoriented to face the future. Here, the first-order topic is the phenomenology of reading literary texts, including the emotions of surprise and interest, the senses of agency and presence, and the feelings of immersion and flow, whereas the second-order method triangulates among insights gained from theoretical cognitive neuroscience, cognitive philosophy, and cognitive literary studies. The first part explains how aspects of perception can be understood in terms of prediction, prediction errors, and the management of precision, or the evolving confidence that we place in our predictions, including those related to unfolding stories and their narration. The second part unpacks the relationship between memory and prediction, including revisiting the cognitivist concept of the schema and how it can be applied to literary intertextuality. The third part clarifies how predictive processing is related to movement, grounded language, and active inference, in which perceptual and motor systems work together to reduce prediction error. For literary texts, this might entail attending to the use of grounded or ‘embodied’ language (Kukkonen 2020), among other possibilities such as feelings of estrangement and narrative foregrounding.

The book concludes with a brief epilogue that recapitulates the exploration of cognition and the arts.

A distinction between types of methods (understanding and explanation) that generate different kinds of evidence relevant to the psychiatric assessment is characterised. The distinction is animated with both non-clinical and clinical examples and exercises. Scepticism about the distinction is addressed, and three influential systems of psychiatric knowledge which collapse understanding and explanation in different ways are discussed. The argument is made that the distinction (analogous to the romantic/classic distinction) resurfaces and is compelling. However, another challenge becomes important – holism in psychiatric assessment – which the understanding/explanation distinction leaves in an unsatisfactory state.

This chapter introduces the methods used in cognitive neuroscience to study language processing in the human brain. It begins by explaining the basics of neural signaling (such as the action potential) and then delves into various brain imaging techniques. Structural imaging methods like MRI and diffusion tensor imaging are covered, which reveal the brain’s anatomy. The chapter then explores functional imaging approaches that measure brain activity, including EEG, MEG, and fMRI. Each method’s spatial and temporal resolution are discussed. The text also touches on non-invasive brain stimulation techniques like TMS and tES. Throughout, the chapter emphasizes the importance of converging evidence from multiple methods to draw robust conclusions about brain function. Methodological considerations such as the need for proper statistical comparisons are highlighted. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how neurodegenerative diseases have informed our understanding of language in the brain. Overall, this comprehensive overview equips readers with the foundational knowledge needed to critically evaluate neuroscience research on language processing.

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the structural foundations of language in the human brain, tracing the development of localization theories from phrenology to modern neuroimaging. It introduces key anatomical terminology and landmarks, including major brain regions, gyri, and sulci. The chapter explores the evolution of language localization theories, highlighting influential figures like Broca and Wernicke, and the shift from single-region to network-based models of language processing. It discusses various approaches to brain mapping, including macroanatomical, microanatomical (cytoarchitectonic), and functional definitions. The chapter also covers important anatomical pathways, particularly the dorsal and ventral streams for speech processing, while noting that these simplified models may not fully capture the complexity of language networks. The chapter concludes by acknowledging the challenges in precisely labeling brain regions and the complementary nature of different naming conventions, setting the stage for deeper exploration of language neuroscience in subsequent chapters.

This chapter highlights several aspects of human communication that rely on brain regions outside the traditional fronto-temporal language network. Factors affecting the neural resources needed for communication include the task demands (including acoustic or linguistic aspects), and abilities of individual listeners. When speech is acoustically challenging, as may happen due to background noise or hearing loss, listeners must engage cognitive resources compared to those needed for understanding clear speech. The additional cognitive demands of acoustic challenge are seen most obviously through activity in prefrontal cortex. During conversations, talkers need to plan the content of what they are saying, as well as when to say it – processes that engage the left middle frontal gyrus. And the cerebellum, frequently overlooked in traditional neurobiological models of language, exhibits responses to processing both words and sentences. The chapter ends by concluding that many aspects of human communication rely on parts of the brain outside traditional “language regions,” and that the processes engaged depend a great deal on the specific task required and who is completing it.

This chapter introduces the idea of language as a means to communicate ideas to other people. The speech chain – following the path of language from the mind of the speaker through to an acoustic signal, eventually interpreted by the mind of the listener – is introduced as an organizational framework. Of special note, all of the stages between talker and listener can influence the effectiveness of communication. The chapter provides a summary of central challenges associated with spoken language, including categorical perception, time-constrained understanding, flexibility, and multimodal integration. It then introduces several “big picture” themes from the book: stability versus flexibility, the importance of context, bottom-up versus top-down processing, hierarchical organization, the role of task demands, and neuroanatomical considerations related to localization and lateralization.

Section 1.1 gives a brief overview of the field of cognitive neuroscience. Section 1.2 details the different types of memory. In Section 1.3, an overview of human brain anatomy is provided. Commonly known anatomic distinctions such as the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, the temporal lobe, and the occipital lobe are reviewed, and more detailed anatomy is discussed. Section 1.4 highlights the importance of the medial temporal lobe in memory, which was discovered in the 1950s when this region was surgically removed from one individual. In Section 1.5, an overview of brain sensory regions is provided, such as the regions associated with visual perception and auditory perception. In Section 1.6, the regions of the brain that control memory retrieval are considered, which include part of the frontal cortex, the parietal cortex, and the medial temporal lobe. Section 1.7 provides an overview of the organization of this book.

Perspectives on how to define, operationalize, and measure insight have evolved due to developments in theory, methodology, and technology. Research on insight can be broken into several waves. In the first wave, Gestalt psychologists introduced the concept of insight as a discontinuous form of learning and problem solving that arises from changes in one’s global representation of a problem, in opposition to contemporary associationist views. In the second wave, psychologists examined insight in deliberate contrast with analytical problem-solving and found that insight involves nonreportable mental operations leading to a discrete, all-or-none availability of representational change. In the third wave, thanks to advances in behavioral methods and neuroimaging technology, cognitive neuroscientists began to examine how insight occurs in the brain with the goal of studying the neural states that co-occur with and precede insight to better understand its cognitive mechanisms. The advances made during these initial waves enabled the proliferation of research on insight over recent decades and inspired new discoveries. This chapter provides a brief retrospective on the first two waves of insight research and a more in-depth overview of the third wave of research on the cognitive neuroscience of insight, and ends by discussing current and future directions in insight research