Research into brain activity may help make language learning processes ‘observable’ and offers a fascinating line of research. In preparing for an article I’m writing I re-read some interesting works in the area of cognitive psychology and have been pondering how this could help detect intake processes (which were are a focus of my research). Buckner (2000) neatly sums it up:

Neuroimaging data suggest a pattern relating localized brain activity and memory encoding. Several neuroscientific hypotheses have proposed that certain regions within the frontal cortex participate in the short term maintenance and manipulation of information over brief periods of time, as would be required during many kinds of information processing tasks. Deep processing tasks and intentional tasks make use of such processing, while shallow processing tasks do not (Buckner & Tulving 1995).’ (p. 285)

Buckner relates this to the formation of memory traces: ‘one speculation would be that the critical cascade that drives episodic human memory formation occurs when frontal activity provides a source of information (input) to medial temporal lobes and functions to bind together the outcomes of information proccessing from frontal and other cortical regions to form lasting, recollectable memory traces’ (p. 285). The same could apply to language learning where frontal processing provides input to the rest of the developing system. This is an interesting, but as of yet little explored avenue for research into the topic of intake and one that I hope to pursue more.