Neuroscience of Language
22 important questions on Neuroscience of Language
What is Wernicke's aphasia & where is the damage?
Characteristics
- Fluent but not meaningful
- Limited
- Produced sentences still have syntactical features
Wernicke's aphasia is in what area? So what conclusion can we draw about the function of this area?
STG is part of language processing system that attaches meaning to words & words to meaning
- Lexical retrieval & Lemma selection
What conditions did Howard et al use to research the neuro-correlate of perceiving words?
Word repetition: auditory input
Read & say: squiggles & say something
Hear & say: hear reversed speech & say this
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What is contrast in neuroscience?
Only the main condition contains the process of interest.
Baseline is almost the same except for this process of interest
If you would use the contrast (See & say) - (Hear & say) what brainpart would you expect to be the difference? & (hear & say) - (see & say)?
(Hear & say) - (see & say): Auditory cortex
What area activates more in high phonological complex words? (High phonological density: How many words share the same phonemes except for 1?)
What did Chang, Rieger & Johnson show about brain activity & categorical perception of phonemes?
(Multidimensional scaling/comparable to MVPA)
- Network trained to identify neural activation pattern of /ba/ /da/ & /ga/
Can the network identify new set of neural patterns?
Conclusions- Superior Temporal Gyrus active 110ms after phoneme perception = categorical
- No gradual change, even though input is gradual
What area lights up when there has to be a lexical selection, semantic access?
(Contrast = repetition - (hear & say)
In repetition you have to recognize, switch the word around then repeat it.
Hear & say isn't this related tot the stimuli?
What did Sabri et al conclude about attention to sound and 2 modalities? (Lexical retrieval; Neuro)
2 levels of attention:
- Attend sound, ignore visual stimuli (Lexical processing for words, not for non-words)
- Do 1-back task & ignore auditory stimuli (no lexical processing)
Results:- MTG activation high for words vs nonwords (contrast: words - nonwords)
- This effect was only found when attended
Conclusion:- Medial Temporal Gyrus involved in lexical processing
What brainpart is activated by speech-like sounds? (Perception)
- Activated by speech-like sounds
What brainparts are activated in phoneme processing? (Perception spoken words)
- Complex processing of phonemes
- Categorical perception of phonemes
Superior Temporal Sulcus (STS)
How did Snijders et al study perceiving sentences in the brain? (Using homonyms)
- Sentence: Syntactical ambiguity & Semantic ambiguity
- Wordlist: Semantic ambiguity
Control words: Not ambiguous
Results:- Contrast: Ambiguous - control in wordlist condition = Semantic ambiguity = MTG
- Contrast: Ambiguous - control in sentence condition = Semantic & syntactic ambiguity = MTG & IFG
Conclusions- Semantic ambiguity: Medial Temporal Gyrus
- Semantic & Syntactic ambiguity: Medial Temporal Gyrus & Inferior Frontal Gyrus
How did Tyler et al show the brainpart of syntactical ambiguity?
Unambiguous control The teacher knew that rehearsing plays (Animacy)
Contrast: Syntactic ambigu - Unambiguous control
- IFG & MTG
What brain area's are activated in perception of sentences syntax? (Perception; syntax)
Inferior Frontral gyrus
What is Broca's aphasia? Where is the damage?
Characteristics:
- Problems in language producion (telegram style & absence of function-words/morphemes)
- Word finding problems
- Very little trouble with perception
How did Sahin et al. Use word production to study morphology in language production?
2. Every day they ... (to walk) --> Walk
3. Repeat ... (to walk) --> Walk
1. Overt-inflect: Thinking about adding inflection & actually adding it
2. Null-inflect: Thinking about adding inflection & not adding it
3. Read: Not thinking about inflection
Contrasts:
Overt inflect - Read: Morphological & phonological
Null-inflect - Read: Morphological
Overt-inflect - Null-inflect: phonological
Results; IFG potential with 3 sequential, independent components sensitive to:- Component 1 (200ms): Lexical properties of the word (to be pronounced)
- Component 2: (320ms): Morphological processing
- Component 3: (450ms): Phonological processing (also becomes more active when complex vs simple syllables)
Sahin concluded the IFG has a potential with 3 different independent components. Which model does this support? (But what goes against these findings?)
1. Lexical retrieval
2. Morphological processing
3. Phonological processing
Supports Levelt model!
1. Lexical selection (Lemma)
2. Morphological encoding (Morpheme)
3. Phonological encoding (Phoneme)
But Lexical bias: Phonological slip-ups more likely when it becomes a real world.
- So it probably isn't just sequential --> Feedback loops)
What are the 3 nodes in the Wernicke-Lichtheim-Gewschwinds model?
M: Motor word images (Broca's area)
A: Auditory word images (Wernicke's area)
What are problems with the Wernicke-Lichtheim-Geschwind model?
Wernicke = perception?
Broca aphasia patients have some problems with comprehension
- Syntax is complex & semantics provide no clues --> Parsing is problematic
What are classical views on aphasia? And new vies?
New view: maybe mental processes that act on linguistic information are compromised
Damage to:
- Wernicke maybe impairs memory retrieval
- Broca maybe makes it difficult to maintain information in working memory
What is Hagoort's MUC model?
U: Unification of Semantic, syntactic & phonological information
- Broca's area & surroundings ( BA44,45 &47)
C: Control (BA 46&9)
What is the differences between older classic models of language in the brain and recent model?
- Broca = Production
- Wernicke = Perception
Recent:
- Larger area's of left hemisphere
- More general processes are used in language (Memory, Unification, Cognitive control)
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