Lecture 15 Language 2.0

Question 1

Washoe

Answer 1

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.

Question 2

Nim Chimpsky

Answer 2

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.

Question 3

Kanzi

Answer 3

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.

Question 4

2 ways language in animal brains is studied

Answer 4

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.

Question 5

Language acquisition devise

Answer 5

(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

Question 6

Critical Period Hypothesis

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Ages of language acquisition

Answer 7

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)

Question 8

3 advantages for young language learners

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

3 advantages for adult language learners

Answer 9

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.

Question 10

Why are some better at learning languages? (4 points)

Answer 10

-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

Question 11

The auditory brain: 4 nuclei

Answer 11

Question 12

There are two pathways that connect the auditory cortex to the frontal lobe, each pathway accounting for different linguistic roles:

Answer 12

• The ventral stream.
• The dorsal stream.

Question 13

Language-relevant brain regions and schematic fiber tracts

Answer 13

Question 14

Where does the division of the auditory streams (dorsal/ventral) begin?

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

What is the auditory ventral stream responsible for?

Answer 15

• 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.

Question 16

What is the auditory dorsal stream responsible for?

Answer 16

• 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

Question 17

Where is Broca’s area

Answer 17

in the left frontal cortex controls language production.

Question 18

Where is Wernicke’s area?

Answer 18

the posterior temporal lobe

analyzes the words you see and hear and also places those words in the correct order before you speak.

Question 19

Who studied Tan? Of what importance?

Answer 19

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

Question 20

Why Broca’s area also plays a role in language comprehension

Answer 20

• 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.

Question 21

Regions that help interpret language

Answer 21

•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.

Question 22

alphabetization and different brain areas

Answer 22

Question 23

language production areas

Answer 23

•Regions in the frontal, temporal and parietal lobes formulate what you want to say.

•

Motor cortex enables speech production

Question 24

how many lobes contain language areas

Answer 24

• 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.

Question 25

Phonological Long-Term Memory

Answer 25

• Studies indicate that humans have both a long term memory store for word meanings (ie. Semantic lexicon) as well as a long term memory store for names of objects (ie. Phonological lexicon).
• Indicated by different types of aphasia, eg. Semantic paraphasia (calling a goat a sheep) and phonemic paraphasia (saying gof instead of goat).
• Bilinguals have a larger area for phonological

Question 26

What is Aphasia?

Answer 26

• A disturbance in the production, processing, or understanding of language due to brain damage.
• Commonly occurs after a stroke, particularly a parietal lobe stroke.
• For stroke survivors living with aphasia, treatment is an important aspect of life after a stroke.
• There are several treatment approaches for the different types of aphasia.

Question 27

Bilingual Aphasia

Answer 27

• The main factors influencing the outcomes of bilingual aphasia are the number of languages spoken and the order in which they are learned.
• The type and severity of the aphasia, the location and size of the lesions, as well as the patient’s levels of education and literacy also influence the functional outcomes of bilingual aphasia.

Question 28

Bilingual Aphasia recovery

Answer 28

• May recover one language but not another.
• May recover both languages simultaneously.
• May involuntarily mix different languages during language production during the recovery period.
• Often recover the second language, not primary, thought to be b/c of memory processes

Why is this?

• In contrast to those who acquired their multiple languages at different points in their life, those who acquire multiple languages when young, and at virtually the same time, show similar activations in parts of Broca’s area and left inferior frontal lobe.
• If the second-or-higher language is acquired later in life, specifically after the critical period, the language becomes centralized in a different part of Broca’s area than the native language and other languages learned when young.

Question 29

Localizationist theory of language

Answer 29

•Views different languages stored in different regions of the brain, explaining why multilingual aphasics may lose one language, but not the other(s).

(the loss of one language occurs because the patient’s languages are represented in different brain areas or in different hemispheres)

Question 30

Dynamical theory of language (re: bilingual aphasia?)

Answer 30

• Much more to do with central executive/frontal lobe processes. Not necessarily the language centres themselves
• Suggests language system is supervised by a dynamic equilibrium between the existing language capabilities and the constant alteration and adaptation to the communicative requirements of the environment.
• views the representation and control aspects of the language system as compromised as a result of brain damage to the brain’s language regions.

Question 31

Treatment: Medication for aphasia

Answer 31

(Currently being studied)

• Dopamine agonists, piracetam (Nootropil), amphetamines, and more recently donepezil (Aricept), have been used in the treatment of aphasia in both the acute and chronic phase.
• Some drugs, such as dextroamphetamine (Dexedrine), are used to improve attention span and enhance learning and memory.
• Research also suggests that drug treatment may partially restore the metabolic function in the ischemic zone that surrounds the brain lesion and also has a neuroprotective effect following acute brain damage

Question 32

Treatment: Therapy for aphasia

Answer 32

Factors that improve outcomes:

• Concentration of therapy. (once a week vs once a month)
• Multiple forms of sensory stimuli. (music, pictures, drawings)
• Gradualy increasing the difficulty of language exercises practiced (make person stretch their abilities)

Question 33

Therapeutic Modalities for aphasia

Answer 33

Programmed Simulation:

•This type of therapy uses multiple sensory modalities, including pictures and music, introduced in a gradual progression from easy to difficult.

Stimulation-Facilitation Therapy:

• This form of aphasia therapy focuses mostly on the semantic and syntactic parts of language.
• The main stimulus used during therapy sessions is auditory stimulation.
• Repetition-focused

Group Therapy:

•Provides a social context for patients to practice the communication skills they have learned during individual therapy sessions while getting important feedback.

Question 34

Cognitive Linguistic Therapy (what is/examples)

Answer 34

• emphasizes the emotional components of language.
• practice comprehension skills while focusing on understanding the emotional components of language. (i.e., interpret the characteristics of different emotional tones of voice or different emotions when you speak; asking what highly descriptive words like “happy” mean to them, etc)

Question 35

What is PACE?

Answer 35

Promoting Aphasic’s Communicative Effectiveness (PACE):

• One of the best-known forms of pragmatic therapy, an aphasia therapy promoting improvements in communication by using conversation as a tool for learning.
• using normal conversation no matter the response from client
• PACE therapy sessions typically involve an enacted conversation between the therapist and the patient.
• The difficulty of the materials used to generate conversation is increased in a gradual fashion.
• Any tools (drawing, pics, activities, etc) are encouraged