14.2 Evolution And Physiology Of Language

Question 0

Human language stands out from other forms of communication because of its ____ – its ability to improvise new combinations of signals to represent new ideas.

Answer 0

productivity

Question 1

Nearly all animals ____ through visual, auditory, tactile, or chemical (pheromonal) displays.

Answer 1

communicate

Question 2

If language is a product of ____ ____ ____, then anyone with a full-size brain and normal overall intelligence should have normal language. However, not all do.

Answer 2

overall brain size

Question 3

Sixteen members of one family show ____ ____ ____. Despite the language difficulties, these people behave normally and intelligently in most regards, evidently, language requires more than just large brain and overall intelligence.

Answer 3

severe language deficits

Question 4

Could someone with mental retardation have good language? Psychologists would have answered “no”, until they discovered ____ ____, affecting about 1 person in 20,000.

Answer 4

Williams syndrome

Question 5

Despite mental retardation in most regards, many people with Williams syndrome speak ____ and ____.

Answer 5

grammatically and fluently

Question 6

The cause of William syndrome is a deletion of several gene from ____ leading to decreased grey matter, especially in visual processing areas.

Answer 6

chromosome 7

Question 7

People affected with William syndrome are poor at tasks related to numbers, the visuospatial skills (e.g., copying a drawing), and ____ ____ (e.g., finding the way home).

Answer 7

spatial perception

Question 8

In spite of overall ____ ____, with a mean IQ score of around 50 to 60, many people with Williams syndrome perform well in certain regards.

Answer 8

mental retardation

Question 9

One is ____, such as the ability to clapper complex with them and memorise songs.

Answer 9

music

Question 10

Another is ____ and the ability to interpret facial expressions, such as relaxed or worried, serious or playful, flirtatious or uninterested.

Answer 10

friendliness

Question 11

Their fascination with faces probably relates to the fact that the ____ ____ – an area sensitive to faces – is about twice as large as normal.

Answer 11

fusiform cortex

Question 12

Their most surprising skill is ____. Although their language abilities development more slowly than average, some individuals have remarkably good language, considering their implements in another regards.

Answer 12

language

Question 13

Let’s not overstate the case. People with Williams syndrome do not handle language perfectly. Their ____ is awkward, like that of someone who learned a second language later in life.

Answer 13

grammar

Question 14

Still, observations of Williams syndrome indicate that language is not simply a byproduct of ____ ____.

Answer 14

overall intelligence

Question 15

Chomsky (1980) and Pinker (1994) proposed that humans have a ____ ____ ____, a build-in mechanism for acquiring language.

Answer 15

language acquisition device

Question 16

Most children develop language so quickly and easily that seems they must have been _____ “prepared” for this learning.

Answer 16

biologically

Question 17

Researchers have begun to explore the genetic basis of this ____ for language.

Answer 17

preparation

Question 18

Perhaps we are adapted to learn best during a ____ ____ in life.

Answer 18

sensitive period

Question 19

One way to test this hypothesis is to see whether people learn a second language best if they start young. The consistent result is that adults are better than children at memorising the vocabulary of a second language, but children have a great advantage on learning the ____ and ____.

Answer 19

pronunciation and grammar

Question 20

However, people who start learning a second language _______ or so almost never reach the level of a true native speaker.

Answer 20

beyond age 12

Question 21

People who grow up in a ____ ____, speaking two languages from the start show substantial bilateral activities during speech, for both languages. Also, the language areas of the temple and frontal cortex grow thicker than average.

Answer 21

bilingual home

Question 22

A child who learns no language while young is ____ ____ at learning any kind of language.

Answer 22

permanently impaired

Question 23

Paul Broca examined the brains of patients with ____ (language impairment). In nearly all cases, he found damage that included a similar area, which is now known as ____ ____. The usual cause was a stroke.

Answer 23

aphasia : Broca’s area

Question 24

We now know that speaking activates much of the brain, mostly in the ____ ____, and not just Broca’s area.

Answer 24

left hemisphere

Question 25

Damage limited to Broca’s area produces only ____ or brief language impairment. Serious deficits result from extensive damage that extends into other areas as well.

Answer 25

minor

Question 26

Most cases result from a stroke, but similar deficits result from ____ causing gradual atrophy to Broca’s area and surrounding areas.

Answer 26

diseases

Question 27

When people with brain damage suffered impaired language production, we call it _____ ____, or nonfluent aphasia, regardless of the exact location of the damage.

Answer 27

Broca’s aphasia

Question 28

People with Broca’s aphasia also have ____ deficits when the meaning of a sentence depends on prepositions, word endings or unusual word order – in short, when the sentence structure is complicated.

Answer 28

comprehension

Question 29

People with Broca’s aphasia are slow and awkward with all forms of expression, including speaking, writing, and gesturing, as well as sign language for the deaf. So Broca’s aphasia relates to ____, not just the vocal muscles.

Answer 29

language

Question 30

When people with Broca’s aphasia speak, they ____ most pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary (helping) verbs, quantifiers, and tense and number endings.

Answer 30

omit

Question 31

Why do people with Broca’s aphasia omit the grammatical words and endings? Perhaps they have suffered damage to a “grammar area” in the brain, but here is another possibility: when speaking is a struggle, people leave out the ____ ____. Many people who are in great pain speaker as if they have Broca’s aphasia.

Answer 31

weakest elements

Question 32

People with Broca’s aphasia have trouble understanding the same kinds of words that they omit when speaking, such as ____ and ____.

Answer 32

prepositions and conjunctions

Question 33

Still, people with Broca’s aphasia have not totally lost their knowledge of grammar. For example, they generally recognise that something is wrong with a sentence. In many ways, their comprehension resembles that of normal people who are ____.

Answer 33

distracted

Question 34

Brain damage studies give us only general information about what Broca’s area does. More detailed information comes from the rare opportunities to record from ____ ____.

Answer 34

individual cells

Question 35

Occasionally physicians expose someone’s brain to explore options for treating severe epilepsy. In a few cases, researchers ____ ____ to record activity in Broca’s area while the person listened to sentences or processed them in other ways.

Answer 35

implanted electrodes

Question 36

Damage in and around Wernicke’s area, located near the auditory cortex, produces ____ ____, characterised by poor language comprehension and impaired ability to remember the names of objects.

Answer 36

Wernicke’s aphasia

Question 37

Wernicke’s aphasia is also known as ____ ____ because the person can still speak smoothly.

Answer 37

fluent aphasia

Question 38

We use the term Wernicke’s aphasia, or fluent aphasia, to describe a certain pattern of ____, independent of the location of damage.

Answer 38

behaviour

Question 39

Wernicke’s aphasia 1. ____ ____ - In contrast to people with Broca’s aphasia, those with Wernicke’s aphasia speak fluently, except when pausing to try to think of the name of something.

Answer 39

Articulate speech

Question 40

Wernicke’s aphasia 2. Difficulty finding the right word – people with Wernicke’s aphasia have ____, difficulty recalling the names of objects.

Answer 40

anomia

Question 41

Wernicke’s aphasia 3. Poor ____ ____ – people with Wernicke’s aphasia have trouble understanding spoken and written speech and – in the case of deaf people – sign language.

Answer 41

language comprehension

Question 42

Although Wernicke’s area and surrounding areas are important, language comprehension also depends on the connections to other ____ ____.

Answer 42

brain areas

Question 43

____ is a specific impairment of reading in someone with adequate vision, adequate motivation, and adequate overall cognitive skills.

Answer 43

Dyslexia

Question 44

Dyslexia is more common in boys than girls and has been linked to at least four genes that produce deficits in ____ or ____.

Answer 44

hearing or cognition

Question 45

Dyslexia occurs in all languages and always pertains to difficulty converting symbols into ____.

Answer 45

sounds

Question 46

As a rule, people with dyslexia are more likely to have a ____ ____ cerebral cortex, whereas in other people, the planum temporale and certain other areas are larger in the left hemisphere.

Answer 46

bilaterally symmetrical

Question 47

Several brain areas in the ____ and ____ cortex have less than average grey matter in children with dyslexia and show less arousal during reading.

Answer 47

parietal and temporal

Question 48

Evidently these brain features represent a ____ towards dyslexia rather than a result of a failure to read.

Answer 48

predisposition

Question 49

In fact, even understanding spoken language requires a combination of ____ and ____. Non-deaf people do far more lip-reading than they realise.

Answer 49

vision and hearing

Question 50

In the often confusing literature about dyslexia, one point stands out is it different people have different kinds of reading problems, and no ___ explanation works for all.

Answer 50

one

Question 51

Most with dyslexia have ____ problems, a small number have impaired control of eye movements, and some have both.

Answer 51

auditory

Question 52

Some researchers distinguish between dysphonetic dyslexics and dyseidetic dyslexics, although many people with dyslexia do not fit neatly into ____ ____.

Answer 52

either category

Question 53

_____ ____ have trouble sounding out words, so they try to memorise each word as a whole, when they don’t recognise the word, they guess based on context.

Answer 53

Dysphonetic dyslexics

Question 54

____ ____ sound out words well enough, but they fail to recognise the word as a whole. They read slowly and have particular trouble with irregularly spelled words.

Answer 54

Dyseidetic readers

Question 55

Most but not all people with dyslexia have ____ ____. Brain scans have shown that dyslexics brains, on average, show less than normal responses to speech sounds, especially consonants.

Answer 55

auditory problems

Question 56

Most people with dyslexia also have abnormalities with ____.

Answer 56

attention