PSYC20008 Study Guide - Final Guide: Cerebral Cortex, Second Language, Aphasia

• School: University of Melbourne
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC20008
• Professor: Katheirne Johnson

Document Summary

Nature or nurture: nature: people are different from rocks, you can talk to a rock forever and it will never learn language, nurture: people need to hear language to speak it. Nature: evidence for language specificity: brain modularity: many aspects of language (such as word and concept meaning) appear to be spread throughout entire cerebral cortex. We(cid:396)(cid:374)i(cid:272)ke"s a(cid:396)ea: appears to have something to do with meaning and word access, adjacent to primary auditory area receives linguistic input, damage produces a certain kind of aphasia resulting in fluent speech but lacking in sense. Nurture: environmental factors: the(cid:396)e is (cid:272)lea(cid:396) e(cid:448)ide(cid:374)(cid:272)e that the(cid:396)e is a (cid:862)se(cid:374)siti(cid:448)e pe(cid:396)iod(cid:863) fo(cid:396) la(cid:374)guage learning, wild (feral) children, raised with little or no language. Commonalities: strange gait (often on all fours), odd senses (smell/ hearing focus), poor social skills (eye contact, disinterest, little empathy), dislike of clothing, vocabulary usually better than grammar, but sometimes no language at all.