Language Flashcards
Identify the major brain areas involved in the act of reading a word and saying it aloud.
Information flow:
Visual cortex: reads word
Angular gyrus: transforms visual
representations to auditory code
Wernickes area: interprets code
Broca’s area: language production, controls speech muscles through the motor cortex
Motor cortex: pronounces word
Definition of Language
System of communication that involves lexicon (words/ substance) and grammar (rules)
Includes Phonemes: basic sounds of language & Morphemes: smallest language units
Predict how a person with a split-brain would process linguistic and non-linguistic stimuli presented at different locations in their visual field.
Language is Lateralized (w/ inverted visual fields remember)
Left hemisphere is dominant for verbal processing, but the right hemisphere cannot share information with the left.
If you put the word face on the right view, the subject could write the word. If you put a face on the left subject wouldn’t be able to identify it, but could draw it.
Brocas Aphasia
Not fluent
Can understand speech
Cant repeat speech
Wernicke’s Aphasia (95% on left hemispheres)
Is fluent
Cant understand speech
Can’t repeat speech
Anomic Aphasia (Logopenic)
Is fluent
Can understand speech
Can repeat speech
Still have other trouble speaking. Connections between concepts and words are sometimes lost.
EG: knows what a saw is and does but not what it’s called; or vice versa (semantic memory)
Global Aphasia
Isn’t fluent
Cant understand speech
Can’t repeat speech
Primary Progressive Aphasia
Neurodegenerative language disorder
Gradually increasing impairments
Difficulty speaking, naming objects, understanding conversations
Brocas Area
Controls Speech Muscles Via Motor Cortex
The left hemisphere
interpreter hypothesis
Both hemispheres process information, but only the left hemisphere has language and can act as interpreter
Werickes Area
Interprites auditory code
Angular Gyrus
Transforms visual representations into an auditory code
Name the single biggest language-related difference between the brains of humans and other primates.
Lateralized arcuate fasciculus tract (between Brocas and Wernickes area) is larger and has a stronger connection in humans
Describe what has happened in the brain in cases of dyslexia
Dyslexia is a deficit in transforming written words into auditory code,
not a deficit of perception
Involves Angular Gyrus and Wernickies Area
Alexia
Damage to the angular gyrus causes a severe form of reading disability
