Language Flashcards
What is language?
- Combination of sounds for communication
- Use of sounds is guided by rules (grammar)
What is a phoneme?
- Fundamental language sound
- E.g., “kill” and “kiss” substitute the phoneme /l/ for /s/
What are morphemes?
- Smallest meaningful units of words
- Break up words into smaller parts
What is a lexicon?
-Collection of all words in a language
What is syntax?
-Rules of grammar
What are semantics?
-Meaning of words and sentences
What is prosody?
-Vocal intonations
What is discourse?
-Stringing sentences together to form a meaningful narrative
How is sound produced?
- Vocal cords located in the larynx
- Air from the lungs oscillates vocal cords
- Rate of oscillation determines pitch - has to do with frequency
What are formants?
-Modify emitted sound; act as a bandpass filter
How does the human vocal cord differ from that of chimps?
- Humans have a special anatomy that allows for wider range of sound production
- Lower larynx than chimps
- Allows for more liberal tongue movements
What is the gestural theory?
- Primitive gestures evolved into language
- Social groups require communication
- Supporting evidence: Language and gestures use similar neural systems; primates use gestures for communication; left hemisphere lesions disrupt sign language
- Signing activates frontal and temporal lobes of left hemisphere
- Similar areas are activated during use of vocal and written language
What is the cocktail party effect?
-When we hear speech in a noisy environment, we can hear it better if we can see the person’s lips
What is the McGurk effect?
-When we see and hear conflicting syllables, we hear the syllable that we see
What is the Wernicke-Geschwind model?
- Word sounds are sent to primary auditory cortex
- Word meaning is represented in Wernicke’s area
- Word meaning is sent to Broca’s area via the arcuate fasciculus
- Broca’s area sends instructions for speech articulation to the motor cortex
- To read, visual areas send info to the angular gyrus and to Wernicke’s or Broca’s areas
- Speech: Cognition to Wernicke’s area to Broca’s area to facial area of the motor cortex to cranial nerves to speech
What is wrong with the Wernicke-Geschwind model? (Number of studies showing flaws of model)
- Binder and colleagues: fMRI study showed speech areas are widespread throughout the brain
- Peterson and colleagues: PET study showed processing of words in visual and auditory modalities is independent, there is bilateral activation or motor areas while speaking, and verb generation activates left inferior frontal lobe, posterior temporal cortex, anterior cingulate and cerebellum
- Wagner and colleagues: Activation in the left inferofrontal cortex when retrieving meaningful information
- Martin and colleagues: Activation in premotor cortex during tool naming
- Damasio: Different parts of inferotemporal lobe activated when naming persons, tools, and animals
- Salmelin and Kujala: Brian is organized into neural webs for different aspects of language
What is aphasia?
-Disorder of language, writing (agraphia), or reading (alexia)
What are the three categories of aphasia?
- Fluent aphasia
- Nonfluent aphasia
- Pure aphasia
What are fluent aphasias?
-Impairment in the reception of language
Wernicke’s Aphasia or Sensory Aphasia
-Deficits in classifying sounds, word salad (confusion of phonetic characteristics), cannot write, cannot understand words
Transcortical aphasia or isolation syndrome
-Can repeat, understand, and name objects, cannot speak spontaneously, cannot comprehend words
Conduction aphasia
-Can speak, name objects, and understand speech, can’t repeat
Anomic aphasia or amnesic aphasia
-Can comprehend, produce speech, and can repeat, difficulty naming objects
What are the nonfluent aphasias?
- Broca’s aphasia or expressive aphasia
- Transcortical motor aphasia
- Global aphasias