CHAPTER 8 || Psycholinguistics: Language, the Mind and the Brain

Question 1

ANOMIC APHASIA

Answer 1

A type of aphasia in which the patient shows inability to find words.

Question 2

ARCULATE FASCICULUS

Answer 2

The bundle of neurons connecting Broca’s area with Wernicke’s area.

Question 3

BROCA’S AREA

Answer 3

An area of the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere of the brain that is believed to play a role in language production.

It is named after Paul Broca, a 19th century French scientist, who first observed its role in language.

Question 4

BROCA’S APHASIA

Answer 4

A language disorder often resulting from damage to Broca’s area, which is characterized by problems in speech production and the use of grammatical morphemes.

Question 5

CATEGORICAL PERCEPTION

Answer 5

The perception of speech sounds in terms of phonemic categories, disregarding their physical differences.

Question 6

CEREBRAL CORTEX

Answer 6

The thin layer of neurons forming an outside covering of the two hemispheres.

Question 7

CONDUCTION APHASIA

Answer 7

A type of aphasia that may result from damage to the arculate fasciculus.

Patients often experience difficulties in repeating words spoken to them, and in monitoring their own speech.

Question 8

CONTRALATERAL CONTROL

Answer 8

Refers to the control of one side (left/right) of the body by the opposite hemisphere (right/left) of the brain.

Many bodily sensations are also experienced contralaterally.

Question 9

DICHOTIC LISTENING TEST

Answer 9

An experimental method used in neurolinguistics in which subjects hear different sounds in the left and right ears.

Question 10

ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAMS

(EEG)

Answer 10

A record of the electrical activity in the brain resulting from the firing of neurons as detected by electrodes placed on the scalp.

Question 11

EXCHANGE ERRORS

Answer 11

A speech error in which two elements switch places in the utterance, as in slicely thinned for thinly sliced, where the two lexical items thin and slice have exchanged places.

Question 12

FUNCTIONAL MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING

(fMRI)

Answer 12

Unlike PET scanning, fMRI is a non-invasive technique.

The brain activity is measured indirectly through changes in oxygen levels in the bloodstream, measure via different magnetic properties of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood.

It is faster, cheaper, provides better spatial resolution, and does not suffer from such severe restrictions on the amount of time, or number of times, a patient can be in the scanner.

Question 13

GARDEN PATH SENTENCES

Answer 13

A sentence the beginning of which suggests a particular analysis, but by the end this analysis can’t work.

A well known example is The horse raced past the barn fell.

Question 14

GLOBAL APHASIA

Answer 14

A type of aphasia involving disturbance to all language functions.

Question 15

LATERALIZATION

Answer 15

The tendency for certain cognitive functions to be performed in one or the other hemisphere of the brain.

Question 16

LEXICAL LOOKUP

Question 17

LOCALIZATION

Answer 17

The theory that different areas of the brain are responsible for different cognitive functions.

Question 18

MAGNETOENCEPHALOGRAM

(MEG)

Answer 18

A record of brain activity by the measurement of magnetic fields.

MEGs provide better spatial resolution than EEGs.

Question 19

NEUROLINGUISTICS

Answer 19

The study of the neurobiology of language.

It is concerned with the brain functions underlying speech and the acquisition of language.

Question 20

NEURON

Answer 20

A nerve cell, the type of cell found in the brain and nervous system.

Question 21

POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY

(PET)

Answer 21

A brain scanning technology used to detect the location of brain activity in which a radioactive isotope is injected in the bloodstream.

Question 22

PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

Answer 22

The branch of linguistics concerned with the mental processes involved in production and comprehension of speech, and in the acquisition of language.

Question 23

SAPIR-WHORF HYPOTHESIS

Answer 23

A hypothesis about the relation between language and thought that was stated in its most explicit form by the American linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf.

It is sometimes referred to as simply the Whorfian hypothesis since Whorf adopted the most extreme version of the hypothesis.

Question 24

SLIPS OF THE TONGUE

Answer 24

An unintended divergence from the intended utterance, also called speech error.

Question 25

SPLIT-BRAIN PATIENTS

Answer 25

Someone whose corpus callosum has been surgically severed to separate the two hemispheres of the brain.

This medical procedure used to be used in the treatment of epilepsy, but is no longer practiced.

Question 26

SPOONERISMS

Answer 26

A type of speech error involving the exchange (metathesis) of initial segments of lexical words in a sequence, as in our very queer dean when our very dear queen was meant.

Spoonerisms are named after the 19th century Oxford don Reverend William Spooner who is said to have regularly produced such errors.

Question 27

WADA TEST

Answer 27

A test for determining which hemisphere is dominant in language processing by injecting sodium amytal into the carotid arteries of the neck.

The ipsilateral hemisphere is deactivated, and if this is the language dominant one, speech is affected.

Question 28

WERNICKE’S AREA

Answer 28

A classic language area of the brain located in the posterior (back) portion of the left hemisphere.

This area is named after Carl Wernicke, the German neurologist who showed that damage to this area gives rise to certain language disorders.

Question 29

WERNICKE’S APHASIA

Answer 29

The type of aphasia normally resulting from damage to Wernicke’s area, and usually characterized by difficulties in comprehension of speech.