Does language shape thought, or does thought run on separate machinery? For fifteen years, neuroscientist Ev Fedorenko has been gathering evidence for a specific answer. Her laboratory has identified a network of brain regions that respond to language and to little else, and has shown that this network can be damaged without impairing the ability to reason, plan or solve problems.
Fedorenko's approach relies on careful contrasts. By presenting volunteers with sentences, arithmetic, music and logical puzzles while scanning their brains, her team can separate the regions that handle meaning from those that handle difficulty. The language network lights up for words and grammar; the harder-working regions that support general reasoning stay quiet during purely linguistic tasks.
The findings challenge a long tradition in philosophy and cognitive science that treats language as the medium of thought. They also help explain clinical puzzles, including why some patients lose language after a stroke while their intelligence appears intact. Fedorenko herself speaks several languages, and she argues that the human capacity for language is remarkable precisely because it is specialised.
