Lecture 15 Language 2.0 Flashcards
Washoe
Female chimpanzee. Successfully (?) learned American Sign Language, which had never happened before with a nonhuman primate. Even passed on signing to kid Mastered around 130 signs. Passed her skills on to her adopted son Loulis.
Nim Chimpsky
Chimp raised as a human. Moved in with a family in New York City and was taught American Sign Language. Memorized 150 signs. (not dramatically more than the first) However, proficiency determined to spring from imitation of his teacher rather than unprompted communication.
Kanzi
Impressive 360 lexigrams. Using a specialized series of keyboards with a lexigram on each key, Kanzi can point to a symbol to “say” a word. Savage-Rumbaugh also cites instances of creativity (monster for large person) and word play in the bonobos, demonstrating that they are not simply memorizing words.
2 ways language in animal brains is studied
PET scans: Show that chimpanzee communication activated the same regions of the brain as human language, particularly Broca’s and Wernicke’s area. Lexigram studies: Symbolic word representations (rather than sign language). Keep these relevant to chimpanzee and human lifestyles to give the apes context for the words they’re learning.
Language acquisition devise
(Chomsky): Language instinct: innate capacity to acquire the extremely complex, creative system of communication that we call language. The language instinct seems to be a uniquely human genetic endowment: nearly all children exposed to language naturally acquire language almost as if by magic. Thought to be the result of the complex interaction of many genes, not just one–and the malfunction of some single key gene simply short-circuits the system. Specific language mutation – some kids do not develop this magic language acquisition
Critical Period Hypothesis
The brain becomes less receptive to new information, in turn making learning a second language more challenging. Natural ability to acquire language diminishes around puberty. French feral child
Ages of language acquisition
if you want native proficiency, start learning before 10 high skill at grammar up to age 17-18, then tapers after that, may not achieve native status -(due to brain not as plastic/it’s done reorganizing) -(possibly adults more socially inhibited)
3 advantages for young language learners
Cognitive – memory is essential to learning anything and children really do “soak up” information more easily than adults. (Parents retain accent, kids won’t) Motivational –Kids are encouraged by a number of factors including parents, exams and the desire to communicate. Structural – in the developed world, most kids are free to focus on their education.
3 advantages for adult language learners
Cognitive – older learners have more highly developed cognitive systems and can integrate new language input with their substantial learning experience. (know their learning style, avoid all-nighters, etc) Experiential – having life experience, you can make associations that are not available to most children, and these associations are particularly helpful when learning a foreign language. (may know Spanish, you’ll know what kind of language structure you’ll need to understand eg. Subject object etc). Contextual – you understand the significance of language more as you get older.
Why are some better at learning languages? (4 points)
-Thought to do with how well language centres communicate when resting. -Most learning occurs at rest (why sleep is crucial) -Finding from McGill: if Left-Anterior Operculum and Left-Superior-Temporal Gyrus communicate more at rest, language acquisition is easier. -Dutch have word for language acquisition area
The auditory brain: 4 nuclei
There are two pathways that connect the auditory cortex to the frontal lobe, each pathway accounting for different linguistic roles:
- The ventral stream.
- The dorsal stream.
Language-relevant brain regions and schematic fiber tracts
Where does the division of the auditory streams (dorsal/ventral) begin?
the auditory nerve where:
the anterior branch enters the anterior cochlear nucleus in the brainstem for the ventral stream
the posterior branch enters the dorsal and posteroventral cochlear nucleus for the dorsal stream
Basically, coming into the auditory nerve, splitting.
What is the auditory ventral stream responsible for?
- sound recognition.
- ‘What’ pathway.
- In this pathway, phonemes are processed posteriorly to syllables and environmental sounds.
- The information then joins the visual ventral stream at the middle temporal gyrus and temporal pole.
- Here the auditory objects are converted into audio-visual concepts.
What is the auditory dorsal stream responsible for?
- sound localization.
- ‘Where’ pathway.
- In humans, this pathway (especially in the left hemisphere) is also responsible for speech production, speech repetition, lip-reading, and phonological working memory and long-term memory. Pathway has many tasks.
- Map auditory sensory representations onto articulatory motor representations.
(Taking sound, mapping it to speech part of motor cortex)
•Repetitive speech makes pathway light up
Where is Broca’s area
in the left frontal cortex controls language production.
Where is Wernicke’s area?
the posterior temporal lobe
analyzes the words you see and hear and also places those words in the correct order before you speak.
Who studied Tan? Of what importance?
Case-study of Louis Victor Leborgne (Tan):
- At 30, lost the ability to speak; could utter only a single syllable: Tan.
- Broca studied him:
- When it came to numbers he retained a surprising amount of control, could tell the time on a watch to the second.
Important because:
- When Tan’s brain autopsied, it showed a lesion that encompassed much of the same area.
- proved that speech function is localized
Why Broca’s area also plays a role in language comprehension
- Patients with lesions in Broca’s area who exhibit agrammatical speech production also show an inability to use syntactic information to determine the meaning of sentences.
- Neuroimaging shows the involvement of Broca’s area during the processing of complex sentences.
- FMRI experiments involving highly ambiguous sentences result in a more activated inferior frontal gyrus of the area.
Regions that help interpret language
•A system of regions help interpret text:
angular gyrus in the parietal lobe, (transferring visual information to Wernicke’s area, in order to make meaning out of visually perceived words.[1] It is also involved in a number of processes related to language, number processing and spatial cognition, memory retrieval, attention, and theory of mind)
Wernicke’s area,
insular cortex,
basal ganglia
cerebellum.
alphabetization and different brain areas
language production areas
•Regions in the frontal, temporal and parietal lobes formulate what you want to say.
•
Motor cortex enables speech production
how many lobes contain language areas
- Numerous regions in every major lobe (frontal, parietal, occipital and temporal lobes - and the cerebellum) are involved in our ability to produce and comprehend language.
- Areas related to language don’t function in isolation.
