Language and Cognition Flashcards
What is cognition?
It encompasses concepts such as; perception, attention, memory and learning, emotion and social cognition, symbolic representation and reasoning and problem solving.
Describe the integration of sensory information
Primary areas receive unprocessed modality data. The association areas then determine perceptual qualities of the modality. The information is then integrated with information from other sensory modalities. This multi-sensory integration can be used to determine what is happening and where ect.
What is the multi-sensory integration for motor output?
- Sensory information about environment and the body projects to primary cortical areas.
- Information is then passes to sensory association areas in parietal and temporal lobes for integration.
- Integrated information is then shares with supplementary motor cortex and premotor and motor cortex to allow planned integrated motor events.
Describe how the same sensory information can be perceived differently?
Due to the integration of sensory and non-sensory information. The same sensory information can trigger different reactions depending on the context
What is synaesthesia?
The mixing of sensory experiences from one sensory domain with those from another or the mixing of two modalities of the same sensory domain. Most common is colour-graphemic synaesthesia which is where black and white shapes are perceived in colour.
Where are the locations of the broca’s area and wernicke’s area
Broca’s area - Anterior to the lower part of the primary motor cortex (near the area that supplies the face).
Wernicke’s area is located just posterior to the auditory cortex
Describe features of the Wernicke area
It is the area of the brain which understands speech.
What happens when you want to say written words?
Visual information is passed to wernicke’s area via angular gyrus and then to broca’s. However the visual cortex can pass the information directly to broca’s area.
What is conduction aphasia?
For of aphasia that occurs when the arcuate fasciculus is damaged and the ability to repeat spoke words is reduced
Describe what happens when you repeat spoken words
Afferent information arrives at the auditory cortex and wernicke’s area. Wernicke’s area comprehends the words and then passes the information to broca’s area for sentence construction and syntax. Broca’s area stimulates the motor cortex to control the lips and tongue.
What is wernicke’s aphasia?
Speech flows but is nonsensical because the patient has rediced comprehension of speech and consequently sentence meaning is very poor. Also reduces ability to understand written speech. However the patient is not concerned that they do not make sense to others.
What is Broca’s Aphasia?
Patients have difficulty speaking and often stutter to find the right word. Patients are aware they are making little sense but they mostly have no issue responding to spoken or written words. However there is reduced comprehension of function sentences like ‘put on top’
Compare the differences between broca’s and wernicke’s aphasia.
Broca’s - Stumbling speech with breaks and halts. Poor grammar and poor syntax. Word structure is jumbled but comprehension is maintained.
Wernicke’s - Speech is fluent but nonsensical, they have adequate grammar and syntax but wrong or invented words. The comprehension is lost
What occurs to patients with damage to the right side of the brain that approcimates to broca’s and wenicke’s area?
These areas add emotional content of language so dysfunction results in aprosodias. Causing robotic or monotone speech.
What occurs to congenitally deaf patients with damage in left brain language areas?
They present with signing deficits and comprehension (of sign) deficits. Likewise if they damage the right side approximating to these areas, it will cause lack of emotional colouring in their sign.
