Brain and Language

Damasio and Damasio (1992) discussed the detailed mechanics of diction processing by the human judgement. Their oblige, first established a general understanding of practically(prenominal) theorys as the brains ability to categorize and classify leger-forms finished the mediation of the human sensors. According to their article, the brains odd and objurgate hemispheres contains three neural constructions. The first extensive structure processes the non-verbal representations organizing objects, shells, and relationships.Second structure, located pull ahead in the leave hemisphere is responsible for producing the speech communication through and with phonemes, phonemic and syntactic structures with the resulting word-forms. They referred to the third structure as a mediating structure that squirt change the concept into the word form or vice versa. Their foster discourse proceeded into the bad-temperedizeds of the brain anatomy and various effects of the damage o r lesions of the muckles of the brain. Their examples with the color recognition were particularly impressive when they described the condition cognize as achromatopsia lack of ability to perceive colors (i.e. seeing the surroundings in the shades of gray). The article was especially effective in describing the mixed mechanism behind the color recognition, color categorization and classification, and producing the correct word-form for the specific color. The article argues against the traditionally thought the pictorial representations of the objects, individuals, or any combine of the environmental experiences but instead the authors describe their theory of how records of neural action at law be stored in the sensory and motor cortices.Such patterns of synaptic activity withal act through and with associations on which one particular object go forth associate with the patterns of color, shape, usage, tactile perceptions, and the feelings that a person has usually when using this object. The authors nevertheless state that the neural actions that occur as the result of interaction surrounded by the person and the object happen in different lockal areas of the brain and come together in areas of convergence of synaptic connections.Then recall of the event and its associated experiences depend upon simultaneous reactivation of the neural actions inside the neuron assemblies when those fire concurrently and reactivate the previously occurred patterns of neural activity. Simultaneously, the categorization and classification occurs in much(prenominal)(prenominal) similar or related neural actions are activated together. The categorization and classification abilities of the first neural structure make it possible to reveal objects by their characteristics and function stored previously, as Damasio and Damasio describe the example with a burnt umber cup.Such recollection is perhaps responsible for the brains ability to gestate the formed within concept and to understand a comprehensive remark as the concept. The article further exemplifies a curious condition in which a patient would loose an ability to define a concept for a unique entity (like an physical species in the authors example). From this example, the subscriber would learn that the affected patient would not be able to stimulate any animal species (i. e. raccoon) nor would say its size, color, or shape.He would simply say animal when presented with the picture of a raccoon (Damasio Damasio, 1992). When describing the affect produced by the specific lesion of the portion within the left hemisphere, the authors wrote about the earlier discovery by capital of Minnesota Broca and Carl Wernicke of the phenomenon called cerebral dominance which specifically pointed out at the left hemisphere as the organ responsible for the production and processing of human language in 99 percent of right-handed and two-thirds of left handers. The article confirms these analyze by briefly discussing the research by Edward Klima of the University of California at San Diego and Ursula Bellugi of the Salk plant of Biological Studies in San Diego who have discovered that aphasia (condition that impedes language-interpreting ability) is ca utilise by damage to the particular region of the left hemisphere of the brain. Using the aphasic patients, the investigators were able to comprise the neural activities responsible for the formation of the language and its interpretation (also including other variations of language such as sign language) (Damasio & Damasio, 1992).With having a map in anterior of them, the neuroscientists and other field investigators would be able to specify exactly which function would be impaired as the result of damage to which portion of the left hemisphere. This would also extend to the predictive ability as far as other functions of the whole language production mechanism are concerned. physical exercise of such can be actual prod uction of speech sounds, modulation (i. e.speaking in a flat tone, long pauses in the midst of the actors line and defective grammar), the impairment of associative and habit learning, production of nouns, production of verbs (nouns and verbs are produced and processed in different regions), difficulty understanding kernels that represent the syntactic structures, and the inability to understand the meaning of non-reversible passive structures. The authors further attempt to celebrate their point of view in favor of the mediating placement between the structure that is responsible for concept processing and the system that actually produces word and word structures.According to them, the mediating systems function would be that of the selection of the correct meaning of lexicon or that connecting the concepts interrelationship. It is understood that mediation system is mostly activated when the person attempts to understand the comprehensive input. The purpose of comprehensio n sets in motion the mediating system that is capable of bringing associative connections between the concepts, particular experiences, and generalized experiences together. To illustrate their view, the authors mention A. N. and L. R.as patients who have a problem in retrieval of parkland nouns representing certain entities. Their deficit in the specific word-form retrieval is causes by their inability to activate the mediation system that deprives them of the ability to bring the connection between the concepts (i. e. of the noun and what that noun represents as far as the object and its function). Damasio and Damasio explained such selective wishing by stating that the selectivity in conceptualization of entities depends upon the absence or presence of the individual(prenominal) relation of the patient to the entity/concept.By loosing the function of some regions of the left hemisphere, the patients will answer by loosing the specific speech/conceptualization function that is mapped to that region. In A. N. and L. R. cocktail dress it was the damage to anterior and midtemporal cortices that rendered them unable to pick may common nouns. The article concludes with the detailed discourse into the studies by the collection of researchers at Washington University.Specifically, this group was interested in the production and interpretation of verbs and functors and how the nouns can be negociate together with the get actions, like the noun apple would mediate with the verb eat. Their conclusions illustrated a circumstance in which the damage to the certain left hemisphere regions would disrupt such association rendering the patient unable to produce the appropriate verb and further disrupting their use of grammar (Damasio & Damasio, 1992).The article was comprehensive in its purpose in equipment casualty of being able to describe the complex structure and function of the left hemispheres regions responsible for processing, production, and mediation of the components of human language. The only limited review of the article that I have is that the authors attempted to place too much of very specific information into a very small format. The complexity of the concepts behind the message would be better delivered if more practical examples were used and the text would be delineated with a larger number of set terms.In general, the articles audience appeared to be professionals or paraprofessionals who already had a significant understanding within the field. It would be difficult to understand for nation with a limited knowledge and background within the field. The illustrations were adequate and the sources appropriate in both quality and quantity. My suggestion for the further research would be targeting the Visio-Spatial Memory Units that are units of memory assembled from different perceptual input within the Working Memory (Baddely, 1992).Further, my suggestion would be to investigate the alternative approaches to the int erpretation and theoretical function-ability of the short-term memory. References Baddeley AD. 1992. Working memory. Science 255556-59 Damasio, A. R. , & Damasio, H. (1992). Brain and Language, Scientific American, pg. 89- 95, Retrieved June 28, 2007 from http//www. utdallas. edu/wkatz/Proseminar_articles. hypertext markup language