language. using language what is language for? using language what is language for? – rapid,...
Post on 19-Dec-2015
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Using Language
• What is language for?– Rapid, efficient communication
• To accomplish this goal, what needs to happen in the brain?
Understanding Linguistic Input
• To accomplish this goal, what needs to happen in the brain?– Encode input (speech, writing, other?)
• Make neural representation(s)
– transform the input (e.g. written word to internal sound)• This probably involves many intermediate steps
– Associate input with meaning – access the lexicon• Lexicon – a mental representation of the meaning of words
– Mental dictionary is a poor but useful analogy
Written Input
• Some terms:– Orthography – visual form of a word• Non-trivial problem! Like all objects, words can have
many different instances of the same item
• bird bird bird bird bird bird
Written Input
• Visual Word Form Area (WFA) is specialized for representing written words– Words are not just pictures– Specialization may be
related to the need to “overcome” mirror-invariance• E.g. b, p, d are all
different letters but
Dehaene (2009)Are all the same object !!
Spoken Input
– Phonology – how the word sounds; acoustic• Words are comprised of acoustic speech units called phonemes
Spoken Input
– Phonology – how the word sounds; acoustic• Phonemes are not invariant – different acoustic inputs are
“mapped” onto the same phoneme
Spoken Input
• The Segmentation Problem:– The stream of acoustic input is not physically segmented into discrete phonemes, words,
phrases, etc.
– Silent gaps don’t always indicate (aren’t perceived as) interruptions in speech
Spoken Input
• The Segmentation Problem:– The stream of acoustic input is not physically segmented into discrete phonemes, words,
phrases, etc.
– Continuous speech stream is sometimes perceived as having gaps
Spoken Input
• The Segmentation Problem:– How do we solve the segmentation problem? Overlay
additional information:• Prosody
– Inflection, syllabic stress, pauses
Spoken Input
• The Segmentation Problem:– How do we solve the segmentation problem? Overlay
additional information:• Vision
– Read lips!– Demonstrated by the McGurk effect
Functional Anatomy of Spoken Input
• Note that the low-level auditory pathway is not specialized for speech sounds– Both speech and non-speech
sounds activate primary auditory cortex (bilateral Heschl’s Gyrus) on the top of the superior temporal gyrus
Functional Anatomy of Spoken Input
• Which parts of the auditory pathway are specialized for speech?
• Binder et al. (2000)– fMRI– Presented several kinds of stimuli:
• white noise• pure tones• non-words• reversed words• real words
These have non-word-like acoustical properties
These have word-like acoustical properties but no lexical associations
word-like acoustical properties and lexical associations
Functional Anatomy of Spoken Input
• Relative to “baseline” scanner noise– Widespread auditory cortex
activation (bilaterally) for all stimuli
– Why isn’t this surprising?
Functional Anatomy of Spoken Input
• Statistical contrasts reveal specialization for speech-like sounds– superior temporal gyrus– Somewhat more prominent on left side