Speech and language

Question 1

what is the critical period and how can this be tested?

Answer 1

• you would like to take twins and raise independently one without human contact. But you can’t do this so the evidence is indirect . If you learn a language under the age of 3 then you get high competence. However, they drop sharply between 11 and 17.

Question 2

what are the key stages in child speech? (6)

Answer 2

• perception: loss of non ambient distinctions
• babbling: spoken
• CV syllables likes certain sounds
• single words
• 2-3 word order
• sentences (4 years)

Question 3

when can japanese and american children have no problem saying la/ra? when do the differences arise?

Answer 3

6-8 months- 10-12 months

Question 4

how do children differentiate between ends of words and beginnings of words?

Answer 4

• statstical analysis

- stresses

Question 5

how long does it take for a child to learn 10000 words?

Answer 5

6 years olfd

Question 6

by age 4, what can children do?

Answer 6

recursion

Question 7

what are the key issues involving language learning ?

Answer 7

• brain size
• brain morphology and organisation
• language areas
• white matter communication
• lateralisation

Question 8

what animal has he biggest brain?

Answer 8

• the sperm whale

Question 9

what is special about the human brain?

Answer 9

it is the largest in comparison to body size - this tells ou what is left over after you have managed your body (encephalised)

Question 10

what is the word for having a brain big relative to your body?

Answer 10

encephalised

Question 11

what do lesions in the wernicke ‘s region result in ?

Answer 11

• percetption problems
• serious comprehension issues
• say words that dont make sense
• may fail to realise that they are saying the wrong word
• may string together meaningless words

Question 12

what is the result of lesion in the broca’s region?

Answer 12

• expressive issues
• can’t form complete sentences
• can’t understand sentences
• can make mistakes following directions (left or right)
• dont use gramatical stuff bt right words with right meaning is right

Question 13

where is language normally in the brain?

Answer 13

• left dominant but sometimes the right can compensate during injury

Question 14

how does myelination link to speech development?

Answer 14

the broach’s area near the motor cortex has no activity when new borns listen to language, but by the time they are 12 months old, broka’s area is being activated, so during these first stages in life, the motor circuits are being developed.
- myelination in the language regions mature later than sensory motor regions- on into the second year and coincides with the acquisition of language and word
-

Question 15

what happens with sounds and pitch in development?

Answer 15

they become more left (or right) lateralised

Question 16

what are the links of studying language in humans?

Answer 16

• can’t look at things ‘ in vitro/ all have to be in vivo- studies are hard
• no other animal have speech

Question 17

what are he here similarities between humans and song birds?

Answer 17

• the architecture and connectivity of avian and lamina brains
• the structure and perception of volcalisations
• forehead box protein P2 is relevant for speech

Question 18

what is the common way that human and birds learn to speak/sing?

Answer 18

• in both cases, learning is the product of the interaction of predispositions and specific experience

Question 19

what is the evidence that song learning is a mis of predisposition and learning? How is this seen in children

Answer 19

if young songbirds are exposed to songs from their own and from another species, they will mainly imitate the conspecific song (of their species) but are able to sing both
- children are able to learn many languages and so have the ability but will only learn those that they are exposed t own they are young

Question 20

what experiment showed that birds there is an innate predisposition to a certain song bt that they also need to be exposed too?

Answer 20

The interaction between ‘innate’ predispositions and specific experience is evident when songbirds are reared in isolation. Without exposure to tutor song, isolates sing highly abnormal, so-called ‘isolate song’. However, a predisposition is also evident, because isolate song retains certain species-specific features

Question 21

what amazing experiment was done with young zebra finches to show the extent of a predisposition to their conspecific song? what human studies are these similar too?

Answer 21

were tutored with a song from an isolate conspecific, they pro- duced a fairly accurate imitation but also spontaneously improved the abnormal song towards more species- typical features. using this slightly improved song to tutor a new generation of young finches the authors found that with each generation, song more closely resembled — and was eventually indistinguishable from — typical zebra finch song
- these data echo (con- troversial) claims about the spontaneous emergence of grammatically correct language in children that have been exposed to agrammatical ‘creole’ language

Question 22

what is the critical on in humans and how is it present in birds?

Answer 22

• In humans, learning new languages without formal instruc- tion becomes increasingly less effective after puberty, and adults have difficulty speaking foreign languages without an accent. To what extent songs continue to change in adulthood varies greatly among different bird species

Question 23

is there a babbling stage in birds?

Answer 23

there is a subsong stage in birds which ten eventually becomes like the mature song

Question 24

do birds have an auditory learning stage too?

Answer 24

yes!

Question 25

how has social interaction between bird and humans been shown to strength language learning

Answer 25

Fourth, in both humans and songbirds vocal learn- ing is enhanced by social interaction with the ‘tutor’ and in birds it can even be influenced by feedback from non-singing females4

Question 26

what do birds and humans not share in terms of language structure?

Answer 26

Perhaps most strikingly, in natural languages, distinct word orders and combinations are associated with distinct sentence meanings, for which no adequate analogues have so far been demonstrated in songbirds, or indeed in any non-human animals

Question 27

what region of the bird brain are involved in song perception?

Answer 27

• the caudomedial nidopallium

- caudomedial mesopallium

Question 28

what regions of the bird brain are involved in song production and song learning?

Answer 28

• the song motor pathway: connects the robust nucleus of the arcopallium and the tracheosyringeal portion of the nucleus hypoglossus and the HVA

Question 29

at pathway in the bird is needed fro sensory motor learning and song bird plasticity?

Answer 29

the anterior forebrain pathway

Question 30

what are the broca and wernicke equivalents in birds and how is this shown?

Answer 30

HVC is the wernickes maybe-lesions to the nCm impair recognition of the tutor song but do not affect song production
HVC is the broca’s maybe: lesions to the HVC in starlings disrupted song production but not recognition

Question 31

how do birds and humans both determine when mistakes have been made?

Answer 31

The motor system for speech and birdsong production must be appropriately controlled, vocal production must be compared to an auditory memory or template, and, if sound produc- tion does not match the auditory template, the error must be detected and the vocal signals must be changed accordingly. Thus, during both birdsong and speech learning, and to a lesser degree also in adulthood, vocal motor output must be monitored continually through auditory feedback and if errors are detected the output should be adjusted.

Question 32

what area of the bird brain is thought to be involved in comparing the song to a memory song and why?

Answer 32

error-correction hypothesis’ for the AFP49 that was based on the postulated role of vertebrate basal ganglia circuits in reinforcement learning97. Essentially, the error correction model assumes that the basal gan- glia are involved in calculating the difference between the desired outcome and the actual performance, and outputs the difference as an ‘error’ signal. recent studies have provided direct evidence for such an instructive role of the AFP. Particularly, when the auditory feedback of an individual note is experimentally manipulated while the bird sings the bird’s brain seems to interpret the manipulated feedback as ‘vocal errors’ and it ‘corrects’ the ‘errors’ within hours by singing the note in question in a different manner

Question 33

if the HVa in birds is involved in error monitoring, what is the analogous region humans?

Answer 33

The anterior cingulate cortex has been implicated in error monitoring and evaluation

Question 34

hat is the role of FOXP1 in humans ?

Answer 34

it is required for the development of speech and language. Patients with DVD have difficulty in planning and producing the precise and specific series of movements of the tongue, lips, jaw and palate that are necessary for correct speech, but receptive linguistic processing can also be affected

Question 35

what is the role of FOXP1 in birds maybe?

Answer 35

• song plasticity: FOXP2 mrnA expression levels in Area X are 10–20% higher than in the surrounding striatum during vocal sensorimotor learning

Question 36

what is the result of a knock down of foxp2 in area X of the basal ganglia?

Answer 36

Gene knockdown of FOXP2 in Area X of the basal ganglia in songbirds results in incomplete and inaccurate song imitation