Language

set of symbols we use as a means of communication; has structure at many different levels, each possibly associated with seperate neural systems

the mechanical process of language such as articulation & phonation

speech sounds and their mental representation/categories

words and word structure, stored in the mental lexicon

a mental store of information about words, including semantic information (meanings of the words), syntactic information (rules for using the words), and the details of word forms (spelling and sound patterns)

sentence structure

Word and sentence meaning

visual representation of words

language problems as a result of brain damage

the inability to name objects (think nom, like name); can result from damage to wernickie's area or the surrounding tissue

inability to control articulatory muscles

difficulty in the proninciation of words; problems programming articulations

type of aphasia that's characterized by speech and writing difficulties but still being able to comprehend others' speech (so no comprehension problems); can exhibit slight comprehension problems b/c of agrammatism; main symptoms are slow/effortful speech, difficulty repeating speech because of dysarthria, and inability to comprehend reversible sentences

deficits in processing grammatical aspects of language; the inability to speak in a grammatically correct fashion; may have telegraphic speech, a speech pattern with simplified sentences without function

also called EXPRESSIVE aphasia (compare to receptive, Wernicke's); patient understands the question, but can’t SPEAK what they want to say

could arrest speech (stop patients from reading while having brain surgery) by applying electrical stimulation to Broca's area

located underneath broca’s area, and is often impacted in people who have broca’s aphasia

big bundle of white matter fascia that connects the anterior insula to Broca’s area (and the inferiorfrontal gyrus); Broca’s aphasia can result not only from damage to Brodmann areas 44/45 (Broca's) but ALSO from damage to Anterior Insula and Arcuate Fasciculus

RECEPTIVE aphasia; damage to the posterior parts of the left hemisphere that results in comprehension deficits (opposite of Brocca’s which is an issue with expression); symptom is that speech is fluent but filled with paraphasias (aka semantic errors, like substituting television for television, or saying non-words)

• Neologistic: utterances that aren't words ('romer')
• Semantic: word substitution, can have similar meanings (Ex: knife for spoon)
• Phonemic: sound for spoon (ex: 'scoon' for 'spoon')

occurts when the arcuate fasciculus (pathway from Wernicke's to Broca's area) is damaged; results in problems producing & repeating speech, paraphasias, can understand words/and even own speech errors but cannot repair them

A is wernicke's (sotres information about word sounds), M is Broca's (speech planning area), and B is where concepts are stored; model assumes that 3 individual areas function seperately and are simply connected by white matter tracts

too simplistic: comprehension cannot be confined to a single area; ex: cases of both broca's and wernicke's aphasia have been found in patients without lesions in those specific areas