Dr. Hurley's Talk: Paradigm Conflicts in Language

Dr. Hurley’s talk covered a wide battery of experiments that explored many aspects of Primary Progressive Aphasia. The part of his presentation that I found most interesting was the conflict between his paradigm of how language is processed with a paradigm from another lab. He presented a lot of data that seemed to support his idea and discount the other. However, he also recognized that there is a lot more research that needs to happen in order to confirm or reject his model. 
This conflict of models reminds me of the differing models of memory that we discussed in class. Both Baddeley’s and Cowan’s models of how short-term memory and long-term memory interact have been supported by various experiments, although Cowan’s seems to be supported more strongly by the neurological data. This just goes to show that there are many possible models for how the brain performs a multitude of tasks. It reminds me that, as neuroscientists, we must be flexible with what we believe about the brain, because knowledge is always transforming.