What is the equation for language?
finite set of elements + combinatorial rules = infinite number of utterances
What is a word?
A representation stored in the mental lexicon
What information is stored about a word?
Spelling
Pronunciation
Meaning
Grammatical category
What is a phoneme?
Smallest sound units of language
What is a morpheme?
Smallest unit of language that carries meaning
e.g.
dog + s
Think + ing
What are syllables?
The rhythmic unit of language
What are stressors?
Relative emphasis to certain syllables which can alter the meaning of words
What have we learnt about language from Broca?
Tan
- lesion in the left inferior frontal lobe
- impaired production
- intact comprehension
What have we learnt about language from Wernicke?
Lesion in the left posterior temporal lobe
Fluent but disordered production
Impaired comprehension
What brain regions are commonly activated in language processing?
Broca’s area
Superior middle and inferior temporal gyri
Role of white matter tracts (dorsal and ventral stream)
What hemispheres are involved in the language network?
Left-hemisphere dominant
RH depends on task difficulty and type of stimuli involved
What are the three types of written word?
Logographic - unique symbol for each word
Syllabic- unique symbol for each syllable
Alphabetic- unique symbol for each phoneme
What is deep and shallow orthogaphy?
Deep- letters or groups of letters represent different sounds in different contexts
Shallow- consistent correspondance between letter and phoneme
What has been found when comparing reading of regular vs irregular and frequent v infrequent words?
Regular words are read faster than irregular words
Frequent words are read faster
Regularity vs frequency interaction
What are the two stages of letter recognition?
Recognition of the letter’s visual characteristics
Recognition of the letter’s identity
What has neuroimaging told us about letter recognition?
Activates the L fusiform gyrus (Visual Word Form Area) which extracts the identity of the letter string regardless of size, shape and position
What is our orthographic lexicon?
Our store of thousands of familiar words which is activated when we read a familiar word
What is the lexical route for speech production (Coltheart, 2001)
Visual unit
Letter unit Orthographic representation
Semantics
Phonological representation
Speech
What is the non- lexical route for speech production (Coltheart, 2001)
Visual unit
Letter unit
Grapheme to phoneme conversion
Speech
What are some comparisons between lexical and non-lexical routes?
Lexical is faster
Non-lexical is faster for pseudowords
Damage to non-lexical: mave can become cave
Damage to lexical: slower to read irregular words
What is the Sidenberg & McClelland (1989) and Harm & Seidenberg (2004) model of speech production?
Fully interactive elements of orthography, meaning and phonology
Single mechanism for reading regular, irregular and pseudowords
Connections emerge that are more coactivated
What is the neuronal recycling hypothesis?
Visual word recognition is a result of recycling cortical structures whose initial functions were for object recognition
- positive correlation between complexity of line in writing symbols found in image fragments
