Week 3, The Brain and Language Part 1 Flashcards
(14 cards)
What are brain cells made up of
neurons and glia
neurons
Neurons process information and send electrical impulses
glia
cells that provide protection to neurons
cortex
the external shell of the brain (also known as gray matter)
composed of millions of neural cell bodies
What is the corpus callosum made of?
composed of billions of axons or white matter than connect the two hemispheres
phrenology
a pseudo-science that believed that certain traits corresponded with a certain area of the brain, and the brain could thus be measured to understand a person’s traits
According to phrenology, where was language believed to be located?
under the eye
What idea did we take away from phrenology?
Introduced the idea of localization: the idea that cognitive abilities are localized to certain parts of our brain
Where is written and spoken language lateralized?
left hemisphere
Structure of neuron
soma: cell body
dendrites: how information enters the neuron
axon: how informatio leaves the cell
Evidence that language is lateralized to left hemisphere
- Dichotic listening
- Split brain patients
- Wada test
- Brain imaging technqiues
- Broca’s aphasia
- Wenicke’s aphasia
Dichotic listening
a test where we simultaneously play two distinct sounds into someone’s ears
The sound from the right ear is almost always the one reported (sound from rigth ear gets sent to left hemisphere)
Wada test
Left hemisphere of the patient’s brain is temporarily put to sleep
If you hand the person an object in their left hand
Patient can’t give a linguistic response of what they’re holding but can identify the object when an image of the object is present
When the right hemisphere is anesthetized, language is still possible
Broca’s aphasia: semantics, syntax, comprehension
Semantics (meaning): ok
Syntax (structure): not ok
Comprehension: mostly ok
