Week 7 language Flashcards
What is the diff between adult cog neuro and dev cog neuro?
adult cog neuro contructs models based on damage to pre-existing systems, dev psych constructs models based upon damage to developing systems
Describe acquired vs developmental disorder
acquired indicates a deficit in skill consequent of a neurological injury following a period of normal development, development indicates the deficit was never learned or developed
Describe Marr’s (1976) theory of modularity.
Posited that it would make evolutionary sense that cognitive processes are composed of subparts with mutual independence, that way, if improvement were made through evolution, to one part of the system, there would be no need for consequences throughout the rest of the system. Thus, each module could carry out it’s processing without communicating or overlapping with other modules
What are Fodor’s (1983) fix properties of modules?
(MIMFIF)
Domain specificity: module accepts only a specific input
Information encapsulation: modules operate independently
Mandatory processing: processing is beyond voluntary control, happens automatically
Fast processing is quick
Innately specified: modules though to be part of our genetic endowment
Fixed neural architecture: information is processed by a specific area of the brain
What do more contemporary discussion about modularity add to Fodors theory?
Modules are regarded as semi-independent, with some degree of communication between the modules - evidenced by cross modal priming.
Furthermore, semi-independent acquisition of cognitive skills is also argued. Similar benefits in that abnormalities to one component would not necessarily lead to comprise to the entire system.
Fodor argued that modules are innate. What are some conclusion that can be drawn from this, and what are some arguments against it?
If innate, there should be parrallels between adult and child disorders, and models would apply across the lifespan.
Karmiloff-Smith (1992) argues tha pre-specification of modules might be less than this - argues that we have the blueprint for modules, which the final shape of are determined by environment and genes. aka “Gradual Modularisation”.
Talk about the downstream effects during the acquisition of skills.
Downstream effect may take the appearance of double dissociations. E.g. language deficits may be as a result of early auditory processing. However, can still be informative. E.g. a child that has early auditory impairment but no language deficits may indicate that auditory processing is not required for language dev.
Name some prominent signs of aphasia
paraphasia - substitution for a word by a sound, an incorrect word, or an unintended word
neologism - entirely novel word
nonfluent speech - talking with considerable effort
What is meant by the mental lexicon?
A repository of information about word including semantic (meaning, properties and uses) and syntactic information (how words combine.
What are some differences between fluent and non-fluent aphasia
Fluent: well articulated, normal phrase length, intact syntactic structures, deficits in recognising sounds and verbs, no problems with grammatical markers, damage to left temporal and temporo-parietal regions
Non-fluent: agrammatic speech, effortful and reduced grammatical complexity and phrase length, deficit in supplying grammatical markers, problems in comprehension, damage to left frontal structures
Wernickies =
auditory
Broca =
speech
describe the pathway for speaking a heard word
Primary aud cortex, wernickes, arcuate fasciculus (lesions here have trouble repeating spoken words, but retain comprehension), brocas, motor cortex
describe the pathway for speaking a written word
visual cortex, angular gyrus (lesions has difficulty saying words seen, but no trouble with words heard), wernicke, arcuate fasciculus, brocas, motor cortex
Describe Broca’s aphasia
Usually left inferior frontal lesion (Broac’s area), damage to memory traces of movements required to produce speech, slow effortful, deliberate speech, very simple speech “make dinner”, difficulty in repeating auditory information, perseveration, automatic speech preserved, insight ok, language comprehension is ok, confusion with complex problems e.g. this is the sister of my aunts brother, is that a man or a woman?
