Neurolinguistics

Nervous System & Brain

Central nervous system (CNS) : brain + spinal cord

Peripheral nervous system (PNS) : cranial nerves + spinal nerves

Brain

• Forebrain (cortical) - cerebral brain + white matter + gray matter
• Hindbrain (subcortial) - cerebellum + brain stem

• Right hemisphere : emotional, visual; phonetics, phonology, pragmatic, and motor-sensory processes
• Left hemisphere : analytic, arithmetic; lexical, syntactic, and semantic processes

• Lobes :

Frontal : reasoning, planning, speech, movement, emotion, problem-solving

Parietal : movement, orientation, recognition, perception of stimuli

Occipital : visual processing

Temporal : perception and cognition of stimuli, speech, memory

Hemispheres and Lateralization

We speak with the left hemisphere — Paul Broca, 1861

Contralateral : sensory information from A side → receivied by B side

⇒ proved by Dichotic listening task (左右耳播不同種類的音訊看反應時間)

Dichotic listening : Right-ear advantage (REA) for speech

Language Zones

• Broca’s area : conscious speech plans

  Inferior frontal gyrus

  Damaged ⇒ production, preservation of speech comprehension X