UALL 2004

PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

Lecture 2

Topic 2: Language and The Brain

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The nervous system and brain anatomy

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Main parts of the brain

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1. Cerebrum is the largest part of the brain.
• Divided into two halves called hemispheres (the right
and left hemispheres) connected to each other by a
wide material called the corpus callosum.

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• Each hemisphere has an
inside layer called the
white matter and an
outside layer of gray
matter called the
cerebral cortex.

• Most of the language

areas of the brain are
contained in the cortex.

• This is why even minor

damage to the surface of
the brain can result in
language impairment.
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• The cortex is not flat but is covered with bumps and
indentations.

• The bumps on the surface of the brain are called gyri

and the grooves are called sulci (fissures).
• One of the most prominent of these
is Sylvian Fissure, the large
horizontal fold located in the middle
of each hemisphere separating the
temporal lobe from the frontal lobe
of the brain.
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 Lobes of the cortex

• The substructures
of the cortex in
each hemisphere
are called lobes.

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• Motor Cortex – located in the
upper middle of each hemisphere
perpendicular to Sylvian Fissure is
responsible for sending signals to
our muscles, including those of our
face, jaw and tongue and make
them move.

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• Visual Cortex – located
in the lower back of each
hemisphere is
responsible for receiving
and interpreting visual
stimuli and is thought to
be the storage site for
pictorial images.

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Visual and Auditory Cortex

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2. Cerebellum is the second largest part of your brain.
• This structure is known to play a major role in motor
control in conjunction with basal ganglia, diencephalons
and the cortex itself (coordinate our movements, posture
and keeping our balance).
• The cerebellum is involved in the coordination of voluntary
motor movement, balance and equilibrium and muscle
tone. It is located just above the brain stem and toward the
back of the brain.

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 Limbic System
• The limbic system wraps around the brain
stem and is beneath the cerebral cortex.
• It is a major center for emotion
formation and processing, for learning,
and for memory.
• The limbic system contains many parts,
including the cingulate gyrus, a band of
cortex that runs from the front of the
brain to the back, the parahippocampal
gyrus, and most notably, the
hippocampus and amygdala.
• The hippocampus is involved in memory
storage and formation. It is also involved
in complex cognitive processing.
• The amygdala is associated with forming
The limbic structures are also connected with complex emotional responses,
other major structures such as the cortex, particularly involving aggression.
hypothalamus, thalamus, and basal ganglia.

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Thalamus + Hypothalamus + Medial Forebrain Bundle
(MFB) = Diencephalons
• The diencephalon is part of the
forebrain and is located at the very
centre of the brain.
• It contains two major organs:
thalamus and hypothalamus.
• This paired structure is made up of a
number of components which, serves
as a way station for all incoming
sensations – with the exception of
smell (olfaction) before they travel on
to the cortex.
• It also plays a major role in providing
motor feedback to the cortex.
• Those surrounding the diencephalon
are known as the internal capsule.
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 Thalamus

• The thalamus is a major relay center to the cortex for all

sensations except for smell.
• It consists of many nuclei, including the lateral
geniculate nucleus, which transmits visual information,
and the medial geniculate nucleus, which transmits
auditory information.
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 Hypothalamus
• The hypothalamus controls many
functions including hunger, thirst,
pain, pleasure and the sex drive.
Another key function of the
hypothalamus is to regulate the
pituitary gland, which in turn,
regulates hormonal levels in the
body.
• The pituitary gland is attached to
the inferior hypothalamus via a
stalk containing blood vessels and
neurons.
• The medial forebrain bundle
(MFB) is a bundle of axons that
passes through the hypothalamus,
and is rich in dopamine neurons.
When stimulated, the neurons
produce reinforcing, pleasurable 19
feelings.
 Basal Ganglia
• The basal ganglia, along with the
cerebral cortex and diencephalon,
compose the region of the brain called
the forebrain.
• The basal ganglia connect to the
cortex and thalamus and organize
muscle-driven “motor” movements of
the body.
• The basal ganglia is a complex
structure not only plays a major role in
the control of movement but also
appears to be involved in cognitive
functioning.
• Damage to the basal ganglia can result Deep in the gray matter of the brain
in poverty of movement (hypokinesia), are the basal ganglia.
as in Parkinson’s disease or too much
movement known as hyperkinesias as in
Huntington’s Disease (dance).
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3. The brains stem is on the top of the spinal cord.
• It relays information between parts of the brain or between
the brain and body and regulates basic body function.
• It is composed of the midbrain, pons (‘bridge’) and medulla
(‘marrow’).
The midbrain contains the major
motor supply to the muscles
controlling eye movements and
relays information for some visual
and auditory reflexes.

The pons is a mass of nerve fibers

that serves as a bridge between the
medulla and midbrain above it. The
pons is associated with face
sensation and movement.

The medulla (also known as the

medulla oblongata) is located at the
base of the brain stem and controls
many of the mechanisms necessary
for life, such as heartbeat, blood
pressure and breathing.
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 Human brain vs. Nonhuman brain
• The cortex is much more extensive in human beings.
• Reptiles and amphibians have no cortex at all.
• The human cerebellum is very much larger than in other species.
• The motor areas in the human cortex appear to exercise a high
degree of control over the larynx, which regulates the passage of air
in breathing and speech.
• In other species, the operation of the larynx is mainly controlled by
the lower parts of the brain.

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 Language areas in the brain
There are language areas of the brain –
parts of the cortex that are used only for the
production and comprehension of language.

1. Broca’s Area
2. Wernicke’s Area
3. Angular Gyrus

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1. Broca’s area is located at the 2. Wernicke’s area is located
base of the motor cortex. near the back section of the
• This language area appears to auditory cortex.
be responsible for organising • This section of the brain is
the articulatory patterns of involved in the comprehension
language and directing the of words and the selection of
motor cortex when we want to words when producing
talk. sentences.
• Broca’s area also seems to
control use of inflectional
morphemes, like the plural
and past tense markers as
well as function morphemes
like determiners and
prepositions.

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 • Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area
are connected by a bundle of nerve
fibres called the arcuate fasciculus.
• Like the corpus callosum, these
nerve fibers allow the two areas of
the brain that they connect to share
information; without them, we would
not be able to look up words in our
‘mental lexicon’ (via Wernicke’s area)
and then say them (via Broca’s
area).

3. The angular gyrus is located between

Wernicke’s area and the visual cortex.
• It converts visual stimuli into auditory
stimuli (and vice versa), allowing us
to match spoken form of a word with
the object it describes. This ability is
crucial to human capacity to read
and write.
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Lateralization of Function
Brain Lateralization and
Contralateralization
• Lateralization refers to the specialization
of each of the brain hemispheres.
• Each brain hemispheres is responsible for
different cognitive functions.
• For most individuals, the left hemisphere
is dominant in the areas of analytical
reasoning, temporal ordering, arithmetic
and language processing.
• The right hemisphere is in charge of
processing music, perceiving non
linguistic sounds and performing tasks
that require visual and spatial skills or
pattern recognition.
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• Lateralization happens in the early
childhood and can be reversed in
its initial stages if there is damage
to a part of the brain that is
crucially involved in an important
function.
• The connections between the
brain and the body are almost
completely contralateral
– i.e. the right side of the body is
controlled by the left hemisphere,
while the left side of the body is
controlled by the right hemisphere.
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• This contralateral connection means that sensory
information from the right side of the body is received by
the left hemisphere, while the sensory information from
the left side of the body is received by the right
hemisphere.

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 Evidence For Contralateralization
A. Putting One Half of the Brain to Sleep: The
Wada Test
• In 1949, Japanese neurosurgeon Juhn Wada
developed a test for language dominance that
involved injection of the drug sodium amytol.
• The injection results in deactivation of the
hemisphere ipsilateral (on the same side) to the
side of injection. The injection produces
immediate contralateral hemiplegia (paralysis of
one side).
• The neurologist engages the patient in a series
of language and memory related tests.
• They evaluate the memory by showing a series
of items or pictures to the patient and—within a
few minutes, as soon as the effect of the
medication dissipates—testing the patient's
ability to recall.

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B. Splitting Apart the Hemispheres:
Commissurotomy

• Normally the two hemispheres are

connected by the corpus callosum but for
certain kind of severe epilepsy, the corpus
callosum used to be surgically severed,
preventing the two hemispheres from
transmitting information to each other.
• It was introduced by Van Wagenen (1940)
as a treatment to prevent the spread of
electrical discharges associated with
epilepsy from one hemisphere to another.
• Since the connections from the brain to
the rest of the body are contralateral,
various experiments can be performed on
a split brain patients in order to identify the
cognitive characteristics of the two
hemispheres.

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C. Taking Out Half the Brain:
Hemispherectomy

• Hemispherectomies – operations in which

one hemisphere or part of one
hemisphere is removed from the brain,
also provide evidence for lateralization. It
was introduced by Walter Dandy.
• This operation performed on people who
experience severe seizures, affects the
patient’s behaviour and ability to think.
• It has been found that hemispherectomies
involving the left hemisphere results in
aphasia much more frequently than those
involving the right hemisphere.
• This indicates that the left side of the
brain is used to process language in most
people, while the right side has much less
to do with language processing.
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D. Listening With Both Ears: The
Dichotic Listening Technique

• In this test, two sounds are presented

at the same time to a person with
normal hearing, one in the left ear
and one in the right ear. The sound
can be linguistic or non linguistic.
• The subject is asked what sound he
or she heard in one ear or another.
• These tests show that responses to
the right-ear stimuli are quicker and
more accurate when the stimuli are
verbal, while responses to the left-ear
stimuli are quicker and more
accurate when the stimuli are non
verbal.

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 Language Lateralization
• Most right-handed individuals have language
represented in the left cerebral hemisphere and are
therefore said to be lateralized for language.
• The standard claim about language lateralization has
been as follows:

‘Most individuals, about 85 percent of the population,

are right-handed, and almost all right-handers have
their language functions represented in their left
hemisphere’ (Berko Gleason, 2005:16).

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• Furthermore, even of the left-handed population, about
half also have their language area in the left hemisphere.

• Although it was acknowledged that the right hemisphere

also contributed to language processing, this contribution
was thought to concern only certain specialized functions
such as verbal creativity or the recognition of the
emotional tone of speech.

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• One of the main findings of language-specific
neuroimaging research has been the realization that the
right hemisphere plays a much larger role in language
production than previously assumed, so that (Poeppel
and Hickok, 2004).
• For example, the right hemisphere has been found to be
active during speech perception, and Paradis (2004)
argues that this hemisphere is also responsible for the
pragmatic aspects of language.
• Furthermore, Pulvemuller (2002) reports on studies of
patients whose brain hemispheres were disconnected by
cutting the corpus callosum – showed word-processing
abilities in their isolated right hemisphere.

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• Pulvemuller therefore concludes that although language
lateralization is a well-established phenomenon, the non-
dominant hemisphere not only contributes to, but in
extreme cases can also be sufficient for, the optimal
processing of language.
• This is in accordance with
the general view in
neuropsychology that both
hemisphere are likely to be
involved in the performance
of any complex task, but with
each contributing in its
specialized manner
(Gazzaniga, Ivry, and
Mangun, 2002).
Thank you 
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