[language] [Fwd: NEWS: Neurological link between language and predictability thatoperates without conscious awareness]

[H. Mark Hubey]

<><><><><><><><><><><><>--This is the Language List--<><><><><><><><><><><><><>



FOR RELEASE: 1 MARCH 2000 AT 00:00 ET US
Emory University Health Sciences Center
http://www.emory.edu/

Emory researchers discover a neurological link between language and
predictability that operates without conscious awareness

Scientists generally agree that humans are unique in possessing the gift of
language, distinguishable from all other animal communication by its rules of
grammar and syntax. These rules allow us to express abstract concepts such as
the past or the future.

How we learn language is still unclear, however. Some linguists contend that
our brains are inherently wired with an understanding of grammatical rules.
Others say we develop this understanding by being exposed to language during
infancy.

A study conducted by researchers at Emory University and Georgia Institute of
Technology contributes fresh fodder to the debate. The study's results,
published in the March 1 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, indicate that
Wernicke's area, a small region of the brain long known to be involved in
language processing, also monitors nonverbal predictability. This discovery
implies that our ability to acquire language may stem from the more
fundamental ability to subconsciously recognize predictable events.

"This study suggests indirectly that the part of the brain that we know is
critical for processing language has a more generic function in determining
the predictability of events," said Emory neuroscientist Gregory Berns, M.D.,
Ph.D., the study's senior author and principal investigator. The lead author
is Amanda Bischoff-Grethe, Ph.D., who was a post-doctoral fellow in Emory's
Department of Neurology.

This finding may have important implications for the evolution of language,
notes Thomas Insel, M.D., director of Emory's Center for Behavioral
Neuroscience.

"From an information processing perspective, language is just one of the many
things that activate this brain region," Insel said. "From an evolutionary
perspective, the coding of sequencing and probability may have provided the
cognitive soil in which language could germinate."

Berns and his fellow researchers originally set out to find which part of the
brain is active while processing the predictability of events that occur over
time -- in other words, figuring out what might come next in a sequence. They
used a deceptively simple test and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to
observe brain activity in people who were shown predictable sequences versus
those shown random sequences.

Study participants were shown a monitor screen displaying four squares,
arranged in a row. The squares lit up one at a time in one of three randomly
selected colors: blue, red or yellow. The participants were asked to keep a
mental count of the number of blue squares that appeared.

This task actually was a ruse, aimed at distracting the subjects from the
fact that sometimes the squares were illuminated in a repeating sequence. For
comparison, some people were shown completely random sequences. Of those who
were shown the predictable patterns, some were previously told that a pattern
might exist, while others weren't.

Throughout the task, the participants' brain activity was monitored via
repeated MRI scans.

The researchers found that Wernicke's area, a small region in the brain's
left temporal lobe, monitored the predictability of the patterns, whether the
subjects were aware of it or not.

This finding is significant because for over a century, Wernicke's area has
been associated only with the processing of spoken and written language. In
1874, German neurologist Carl Wernicke first noted that people who suffer
stroke or other damage to this particular region of the brain consequently
display a condition called aphasia: They can neither speak comprehensibly nor
understand the speech of others.

The discovery of a predictability-determining role for Wernicke's area
suggests that our ability to make sense of language is rooted in our ability
to recognize syntax, defined as the orderly arrangement of parts or elements
of a system. Those parts or elements don't necessarily have to be words or
phrases - the repeating pattern of colored boxes used by the Emory
researchers is essentially an artificially created syntax, albeit an
extremely simple one.

"Language itself is a very predictable thing, because it is constrained by
the rules of grammar and syntax," Berns noted.

By contributing to our knowledge of the neurological basis of language, this
study also may eventually lead to better understanding and treatment of
dyslexia. Wernicke's area appears to function differently in people with this
common learning disability, who often have trouble reading because they
reverse or transpose letters within words. They also may have difficulty
writing, pronouncing words, understanding spoken language, or performing math
computations.

"There are some hints that dyslexia is more related to being able to separate
events in time," Berns said. "This study would support that."

Berns, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory
University and an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Georgia
Tech, specializes in studying the mechanisms of learning in the non-verbal
parts of the brain. He has previously used brain imaging systems such as MRI
and positron emission tomography (PET) to measure subconscious brain activity
in people performing learning tasks.

The study was supported by the departments of psychiatry and radiology at
Emory's School of Medicine, the Stanley Foundation, the National Institute on
Drug Abuse and a National Science Foundation Markey Fellowship.

---<><><><><><><><><><><><>----Language----<><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Copyrights/"Fair Use":  http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html
The "fair use" exemption to copyright law was created to allow things
such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education
about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's
important so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express
your own works -- only the ability to express other people's.
Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are
important considerations.

You are currently subscribed to language as: language at listserv.linguistlist.org
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-language-4283Y at csam-lists.montclair.edu