The Brain And Language (Chapter 2)

Front 1

cortex

Back 1

The surface of the brain. Often called the "gray matter," cosisting of billions of neurons. It is the decision-making organ of the body.

Front 2

cerebral hemispheres

Back 2

The left and right halves of the brain, joined by the corpus callosum. In general, the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body, and the right hemisphere controls the left side.

Front 3

corpus callosum

Back 3

This allows the two hemispheres of the brain to communicate with each other. Without this system of connections, the two hemispheres would operate independently.

Front 4

localization

Back 4

The idea that different human cognitive abilities behaviors are localized in specific parts of the brain. (Franz Joseph Gall)

Front 5

contralateral brain function

Back 5

Refers to neural signals that travel between one side of the body (left/right) and the opposite cerebral hemisphere (right/left)

Front 6

phrenology

Back 6

The practice of determining personality traits, intellectual capacities, and other matters by examining the "bumps" of he skull.

Front 7

aphasia

Back 7

The neurological term for any language disorder that results from brain damage caused by disease or trauma.

Front 8

Broca's area

Back 8

The front part of the left hemisphere.

Front 9

Wernicke's area

Back 9

The left hemisphere temporal lobe.

Front 10

lateralization

Back 10

The term used to refer to the localization of function to one hemisphere of the brain.

Front 11

Broca's aphasia

Back 11

Patients with injuries to Broca's area may have this. It is characterized by labored speech and certain kinds of word-finding difficulties, but it is primarily a disorder that affects a person's ability to form sentences with the rules of syntax.

Front 12

agrammatic

Back 12

Language that frequently lacks articles, prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, and other grammatical elements.

Front 13

agrammatic aphasics (also called broca's aphasics)

Back 13

Language disorder usually resulting from damage to Broca's region in which the patient has difficulty with certain aspects of sytax, especially functional categories.

Front 14

Wernicke's aphasia

Back 14

People with this produce fluent speech with good intonation, and they may largely adhere to the rules of syntax. However, their language is semantically incorrect.

Front 15

jargon aphasia

Back 15

This is very severe Wernicke's aphasia.

Front 16

modular organization

Back 16

The organization of the brain and mind into distinct, independent, and autonomous parts that interact with each other.

Front 17

acquired dyslexics

Back 17

People who, before their brain lesions, were normal readers.

Front 18

anomia

Back 18

The inability to find the word you wish to speak.

Front 19

magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

Back 19

A technique to investigate the molecular structures in human organs including the brain, which may be used to identify sites of brain lesions.

Front 20

positron emission tomography (PET)

Back 20

Method to detect changes in brain activities and relate these changes to localized brain damage cognitive tasks.

Front 21

split-brain

Back 21

The result of an operation for epilepsy in which the corpus callosum is severed, thus seperating the brain into its two hemispheres; split-brain patients are studied to determine the role of each hemisphere in cognitive and language processing.

Front 22

dichotic listening

Back 22

An experimental technique that uses auditory signals to observe the behavior of the individual hemispheres of the human brain.

Front 23

ipsilateral

Back 23

Refers to neural signals that travel between one side of the body (left/right) and the same cerebral hemisphere (left/right)

Front 24

event-related brain potentials (ERPs)

Back 24

The electrical signals emitted from the brain in response to different stimuli.

Front 25

specific language impairment (SLI)

Back 25

Children whose linguistic ability is affected, and often only specific aspects of grammar are impaired. They have problems with the use of function words such as articles, prepositions, and auxiliary verbs.

Front 26

savants

Back 26

An individual who shows special abilities in one cognitive area while being deficient in others. Linguistic savants have extraordinary language abilities but are deficient in general intelligence.

Front 27

critical-age hypothesis

Back 27

Assumes that language is biologically based and that ability to learn a native language develops within a fixed period, from birth to middle childhood.

Front 28

contralateral

Back 28

Refers to neural signals that travel between one side of the body (left/right) and the opposite cerebral hemisphere (right/left)