Week 8 (Language, Language Processing, Language and Children)

The Beginning of Language

• What happened to make language possible in humans?

  • Most likely evolved as a specializations

  • Language acquisition device theory

    • We are born with a neural mechanism specialized for understanding language

Specilization

• Humans have a gene FOXP2 that regulates a protien important for synpase formation in the cortex

  • Some people with a FOXP2 mutation show language impairments

  • There is no one specific gene for language

    • No studies conclude that any specific gene is solely responsible for the acquisition of language

Children and Language

• Language learning requires input

  • Children who are raised with no language are permanently impaired at learning language

• Learning a language is easier when you are younger

  • Deaf children who learned sign language earlier performed better than those who learned later

Language Processing

• We use visual and auditory cues to understanding language

  • Cues include lip movements, pictures, and auditory sounds that we percieve as words

  • We are tuned to notice when visual and auditory types of stimuli are out of synch

• Spoken language is processed slightly faster when presented to the right ear

  • Called the right ear advantage

  • True for most right-handed individuals

  • Is tests for using dichotic listening tests

McGurk Effect

• When using visual and auditory cues to understand language we sometimes perceive auditory words as being different based on lip movements or pictures shown. 

Processing

• Language information is often processed in the left hemisphere

  • Information from the right ear travels directly to the left hemisphere

  • Language information from the left ear goes to the right hemisphere then crosses to the left hemisphere to be further process