Language Functions And Brain Organization

Download or read book Language Functions and Brain Organization written by S. J. Segalowitz and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2014-05-19 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Language Functions and Brain Organization

Download or read book Discovering the Brain written by National Academy of Sciences and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The brain ... There is no other part of the human anatomy that is so intriguing. How does it develop and function and why does it sometimes, tragically, degenerate? The answers are complex. In Discovering the Brain, science writer Sandra Ackerman cuts through the complexity to bring this vital topic to the public. The 1990s were declared the "Decade of the Brain" by former President Bush, and the neuroscience community responded with a host of new investigations and conferences. Discovering the Brain is based on the Institute of Medicine conference, Decade of the Brain: Frontiers in Neuroscience and Brain Research. Discovering the Brain is a "field guide" to the brainâ€"an easy-to-read discussion of the brain's physical structure and where functions such as language and music appreciation lie. Ackerman examines: How electrical and chemical signals are conveyed in the brain. The mechanisms by which we see, hear, think, and pay attentionâ€"and how a "gut feeling" actually originates in the brain. Learning and memory retention, including parallels to computer memory and what they might tell us about our own mental capacity. Development of the brain throughout the life span, with a look at the aging brain. Ackerman provides an enlightening chapter on the connection between the brain's physical condition and various mental disorders and notes what progress can realistically be made toward the prevention and treatment of stroke and other ailments. Finally, she explores the potential for major advances during the "Decade of the Brain," with a look at medical imaging techniquesâ€"what various technologies can and cannot tell usâ€"and how the public and private sectors can contribute to continued advances in neuroscience. This highly readable volume will provide the public and policymakersâ€"and many scientists as wellâ€"with a helpful guide to understanding the many discoveries that are sure to be announced throughout the "Decade of the Brain."

Download or read book Aphasia and Brain Organization written by Ivar Reinvang and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-22 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the work on aphasia coming out of the Institute for Aphasia and Stroke in Norway during its 10 years of existence. Rather than reviewing previously presented work, it was my desire to give a unified analysis and discussion of our accumulated data. The empirical basis for the analysis is a fairly large group (249 patients) investigated with a standard, comprehensive set of procedures. Tests of language functions must be developed anew for each language, but comparison of my findings with other recent compre hensive studies of aphasia is faciliated by close parallels in test meth ods (Chapter 2). The classification system used is currently the most accepted neurological system, but I have operationalized it for research purposes (Chapter 3). The analyses presented are based on the view that aphasia is an aspect of a multidimensional disturbance of brain function. Find ings of associated disturbances and variations in the aphasic condition over time have been dismissed by some as irrelevant to the study of aphasia as a language deficit. My view is that this rich and complex set of findings gives important clues to the organization of brain functions in humans. I present analyses of the relationship of aphasia to neuropsychological disorders in conceptual organization, memory, visuospatial abilities and apraxia (Chapters 4, 5, and 6), and I study the variations with time of the aphasic condition (Chapter 8).

Download or read book Language in Our Brain written by Angela D. Friederici and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-11-16 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive account of the neurobiological basis of language, arguing that species-specific brain differences may be at the root of the human capacity for language. Language makes us human. It is an intrinsic part of us, although we seldom think about it. Language is also an extremely complex entity with subcomponents responsible for its phonological, syntactic, and semantic aspects. In this landmark work, Angela Friederici offers a comprehensive account of these subcomponents and how they are integrated. Tracing the neurobiological basis of language across brain regions in humans and other primate species, she argues that species-specific brain differences may be at the root of the human capacity for language. Friederici shows which brain regions support the different language processes and, more important, how these brain regions are connected structurally and functionally to make language processes that take place in milliseconds possible. She finds that one particular brain structure (a white matter dorsal tract), connecting syntax-relevant brain regions, is present only in the mature human brain and only weakly present in other primate brains. Is this the “missing link” that explains humans' capacity for language? Friederici describes the basic language functions and their brain basis; the language networks connecting different language-related brain regions; the brain basis of language acquisition during early childhood and when learning a second language, proposing a neurocognitive model of the ontogeny of language; and the evolution of language and underlying neural constraints. She finds that it is the information exchange between the relevant brain regions, supported by the white matter tract, that is the crucial factor in both language development and evolution.

Download or read book Selected Papers on Language and the Brain written by N. Geschwind and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 567 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophers of science work not only with the methods of the sciences but with their contents as well. Substantive issues concerning the relation between mind and matter, between the material basis and the functions of cognition, have been central within the entire history of philosophy. We recall such philosophers as Aristotle, Descartes, the early Kant, Ernst Mach, and the early William James as directly inquiring of the organs and structures of thinking. Science and its philosophical self-criticism are especially and deeply united in the effort to understand the biological brain and human behavior, and so it requires no apology to include this collection of clinical studies among Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. The work of Dr. Norman Geschwind, well represented in this selection, explores the relation between structure and function, between the anatomy of the brain and the 'higher' behavior of men and women. As a clinical neurologist, Geschwind was led to these studies particularly by his in terest in those pathologies which have to do with human perception and language. His research into the anatomical substrates of specific dis orders-and strikingly the aphasias -present a fascinating and provocative examination of fundamental questions which will concern not neurologists alone but also psychologists, physicians, linguists, speech pathologists, educators, anthropologists, historians of medicine, and philosophers, among others, namely all those interested in the characteristic modes of human activity, in speech, in perception, and in the learning process generally.

Download or read book Language and the Brain written by Loraine K. Obler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to neurolinguistics showing how language is organized in the brain.

Download or read book The Cambridge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics written by Barbara Dancygier and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-01 with total page 1427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The best survey of cognitive linguistics available, this Handbook provides a thorough explanation of its rich methodology, key results, and interdisciplinary context. With in-depth coverage of the research questions, basic concepts, and various theoretical approaches, the Handbook addresses newly emerging subfields and shows their contribution to the discipline. The Handbook introduces fields of study that have become central to cognitive linguistics, such as conceptual mappings and construction grammar. It explains all the main areas of linguistic analysis traditionally expected in a full linguistics framework, and includes fields of study such as language acquisition, sociolinguistics, diachronic studies, and corpus linguistics. Setting linguistic facts within the context of many other disciplines, the Handbook will be welcomed by researchers and students in a broad range of disciplines, including linguistics, cognitive science, neuroscience, gesture studies, computational linguistics, and multimodal studies.