Language and Cognition Flashcards
Why do we need to know about language?
- common in stroke
- dementia presentation
- Autism ⇒ delay in development
- Movement disorders; change in speech patterns
What does language involve?
- reading
- writing
- speaking (expressive language function)
- understanding (receptive language function)
What is language function a prime example of?
how the brain takes sensory information and generates symbolic representations which can be vocalised and shared
Define neurolingustics
how language is represented in the brain
How is muscle movement controlled in the cerebral hemispheres?
each hemisphere is resonsible for movement on the contralateral side of the body
Describe the hemisphere functions in higher conrtical functions
the hemispheres are lateralised
What is the left cerebral hemisphere responsible for?
Analytic tasks
Maths and language
What is the right cerebral hemisphere responsible for?
Recognition of complex patterns
Faces and melodies
Define aphasia
problems producing speech
What causes aphasia?
language deficit caused by damage to the brain
stroke or accident/trauma
What area is affected in non-fluent (motor) aphasia?
Front left cortex (Broca’s area)
What are the main features of Broca’s Aphasia?
▪ Speech is very halting
▪ Function words are omitted (it, is, to, a etc.)
▪ Pronunciation is simplified (spoon > poon etc.)
▪ Inflectional endings are omitted (running > run etc.)
What did Carl Wernicke observe?
observed a patient who could speak and who could hear, but was unable to understand the spoken word
What area is affected in Wernicke’s aphasia?
lateral temporal cortex
What are the features of Wrnicke’s aphasia?
someone will speak in phrases sounding normal/fluent BUT words lack meaning
How do monolinguals and multilinguals differ?
multilinguals have more right hemisphere dominance than monolinguals
How many more times likely are multilinguals likely to develop aphasia?
5x more likely than monolinguals
In what hemisphere does language processing occur in a right handed person?
left hemisphere task
What is the ear advantage of linguistic sounds?
right ear advatnage (left hemi)
LANGUAGE
What is the ear advatnage of environmental sounds
left ear advantage
MUSIC AND TONE
Describe how the meaning of words is processed
- Is processed all over the cortex
- Huth et al, 2016 had people listen to hours of radio while in an FMRI scanner
- He analysed the pattern of the 50,000 voxels
- Every meaning appeared in multiple locations, and every location contained a cluster of related meanings. Some areas selectively responded to words related to people, for instance, whereas other responded to places or numbers
What is the process of lexical retrival
- An object triggers a concept (non-verbal)
- Semantic lexicon; which has a number of words/info relating to the concept
- triggers phonological output lexicon including relevent metric, physical aspects; sounds, vowels and consonants **Frequently used words/outputs are primed for use when the meaning requires it
- Phonological output buffers the montiors and orders the output of the sounds and words to be used
How is the right hemisphere involved in language?
involved in emotional aspects analyses the prosaic and ‘musical’ aspects of speech
What is the clinical importance of language?
- When did they start to talk?
- How they say things
- What they say
- What is that persons normal
