Brain and Language
What is neurolinguistics?
Discipline that examines how the brain processes language.
Which methodology increased our understanding of language in the brain but cannot scan fast enough for fast language comprehension and production abilities?
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
Name the area in the brain responsible for speech production and the type of deficit associated with damage to this area.
Broca’s area; expressive-language deficit.
Name the two areas associated with aphasia, along with their respective deficits.
Broca’s area (expressive-language deficit) and Wernicke’s area (receptive-language deficit).
What is lateralization in the context of brain function?
Each hemisphere of the brain has somewhat different functions.
What are some functions associated with Broca’s area beyond language processing?
Processing music, gestures associated with speech, and some types of imagery.
What technique records very brief fluctuations in the brain’s electrical activity but does not reliably provide information about where in the brain a process occurs?
Event-related potential (ERP) technique.
What is Broca’s aphasia, and what difficulties does it present in language production?
Trouble producing speech, hesitant speech, and difficulty with language comprehension.
What is Wernicke’s aphasia, and what difficulties does it present in language comprehension?
Trouble understanding speech, even simple instructions, and problems with language production (wordy and confused).
Which hemisphere of the brain performs most of the work in language processing for most people?
Left hemisphere.
Which fMRI technique gathers data while a person performs several complex language tasks to create individual “linguistic maps”?
Language localizer task.
What did Fedorenko, Behr, and Kanwisher (2012) study using fMRI, and what did they find?
Complex language tasks; located portions of left hemisphere, including portions of Broca’s area, processing specific linguistic information.
What is the mirror system, and what does it activate in the brain when observing someone perform an action?
A network of neurons in the brain’s motor cortex; activates the same neurons in the motor cortex as when performing the action.
What was the significance of Gernsbacher & Robertson’s (2005) study on brain activity during sentence processing?
Showed different activation patterns in the right hemisphere for sentences with different levels of linguistic cohesion.
What did Calvo-Merino et al. (2005) study regarding the mirror system, and what did they find?
Experts in ballet or martial arts watching videos of their respective expertise; greater activation of motor cortex when watching their expertise.