Language and the brain pt. II, Diapositivas de Psicolingüística

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The Brain basics

Ana Laura Rodríguez Redondo

Language and the brain

• The cortex :
  • The upper surface of the brain
  • the “grey matter”
• It deals with many of the more complex operations including: - Making connections with stored information - Analysing input - Controlling sophisticated muscular movements.

Language and the brain

• When the stimulus was presented to the right hand or right visual field, it was processed by the left hemisphere - Then the patients had no trouble naming the object or word.
• When the information was presented to the left hand or left visual field, it was processed by the right hemisphere - Then, the patients drew a verbal blank.
• When asked to identify the object from among a set of picture cards, or to draw the object with their left hand - Then patients could do it, showing that they had recognized the object. - But the part of their brain in the right hemisphere that had recognized the object was unable to communicate with the language areas in the left, leaving them incapable of reporting that they had seen it, much less naming it (Gazzaniga & Sperry, 1967).

The results from the split-brain studies reveal two "half-minds“ at

odds with each other, with one hemisphere clearly more devoted to

language than the other. (^) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCv4K5aStdU

Language

and the brain

• The cortex is distinguished by its convolutions: the hills

and valleys known:

• Gyri
• Fissures or sulci

• Frontal
  • reasoning, planning,

parts of speech,

movement, emotions,

and problem solving

• Parietal
  • movement, orientation,

recognition, perception

of stimuli

• Occipital
  • visual processing
• Temporal
  • perception and

recognition of auditory

stimuli, memory, and

speech

Cerebral lobes (Bear, Connors and Paradiso (2001:207)).

• The cerebral cortex functional

areas:

• Primary Sensory areas
  • receive sensory input e.g.

somatic, vision, hearing…

• Primary Motor areas
  • control movement of

muscles

• Secondary areas
  • Make sense out of the

signals received by primary

association areas

• Association areas
  • Higher level of

interpretative, complex

functions:

• learning
• decision making
• complex movements
• writing
• http://neuro.sofiatopia.org/brainmind_brain.htm

• Subcortical areas :
  • The “white matter”
  • is mainly made up of nerve cell fibres
• They are responsible for:
  • Reflex actions
  • Controlling functions such as breathing and heart beats
• Thalamus and hypothalamus are part of the grey matter - primarily concerned with: sleep, appetite, sexual desire etc - Also implicated e.g. in naming and sentence generation tasks.
• White matter among them:
  • the internal capsule
    • implicated in aphasia
  • temporal isthmus along with the arcuate fasciculus - connects anterior and posterior cortical areas involved in language

Subcortical areas

Obler and Gjerlow (1999:21))

Language and the brain

• volitional association area
  • prefrontal cortex, frontal lobes
  • receives fibers from all sensory systems: (vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell
  • very interconnected with the:
    • Limbic system (emotional responses)
    • Verbal association area
    • Spatial Association area
  • coordinates highly complex movements
  • is the "seat of the will", for all goal-oriented behaviors, actions and intentions
  • able to focus on important tasks through redundancy (screening out superfluous input)
  • It computes:
    • Planning
    • Imagining
    • Deciding
    • Attention regulation

Limbic system

Language and the brain

• Language processing basics
  • The Wernicke-Geschwind model

The Wernicke-Geschwind model

Repeating a written word

Tari, S. http://www.physiology.sdu.edu.cn/

Language and the brain

• Indications that this W-G model is too simple: - Language functions not restricted to left

hemisphere

• important role of the right hemisphere in deep dyslexia
• Importance of subcortical areas
• brain damage has no clear-cut effects as the model predicts
• electrical stimulation of different regions have the same effect
• selective stimulation of Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas does not produce expected results.