Brain and Language II

Ashwini Vaidya

19th Jan, 2023

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 1 / 24

From last time ..
I Lateralization of language to the left hemisphere
I Investigation of language in the brain via disorders
I Aphasias affect specific linguistic functions

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Language and Cognition

Are language and cognition separate mental faculties?

Did language emerge from general cognitive abilities?
And in a slightly different vein- what is the relationship between
language and thought ? Does one influence the other?

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Relationship between language and cognition

We would like to develop a theory of cognition that can explain all

human mental abilities
Is language special or different from other cognitive abilities ?
Two perspectives on this question :
I General-purpose problem solving processes are the foundation for all
human intelligence
I Many distinct domains of cognition exist and must be learned
separately, using different mental mechanisms

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Examples of ‘general purpose’ cognition

General purpose cognition

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Examples of ‘general purpose’ cognition

General purpose cognition

I Mentally complete a known pattern after seeing a part of it (pattern
completion)

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 5 / 24

Examples of ‘general purpose’ cognition

General purpose cognition

I Mentally complete a known pattern after seeing a part of it (pattern
completion)
I Induce membership of a category after seeing exemplars of it (category
induction)

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 5 / 24

Examples of ‘general purpose’ cognition

General purpose cognition

I Mentally complete a known pattern after seeing a part of it (pattern
completion)
I Induce membership of a category after seeing exemplars of it (category
induction)
Mechanistic explanations of these cognitive abilities, implemented in
the form of algorithms

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 5 / 24

Examples of ‘general purpose’ cognition

General purpose cognition

I Mentally complete a known pattern after seeing a part of it (pattern
completion)
I Induce membership of a category after seeing exemplars of it (category
induction)
Mechanistic explanations of these cognitive abilities, implemented in
the form of algorithms
Such cognitive models can explain that the same principles underlying
problem-solving, explain aspects of language acquisition and language
processing

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 5 / 24

Distinct domains approach
Also known as ‘modularity of cognition’ or ‘mental modules’ approach
Distinct mental modules evolved to accomplish tasks like language
use, visual exploration
Particular areas of the brain are associated with distinct functions e.g.
vision, motor co-ordination, memory, language (localization)
The selective impairment seen in aphasics is seen as evidence for a
separate language module

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Modularity approach

Prominent proponents include Noam Chomsky, Jerry Fodor

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Modularity approach

Prominent proponents include Noam Chomsky, Jerry Fodor

Linguistic abilities are specialized, similar to having a ‘mental organ’
for language

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 7 / 24

Modularity approach

Prominent proponents include Noam Chomsky, Jerry Fodor

Linguistic abilities are specialized, similar to having a ‘mental organ’
for language
In contrast to the prevailing ideas in the 1950s- children do not learn
by imitating adults

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 7 / 24

Modularity approach

Prominent proponents include Noam Chomsky, Jerry Fodor

Linguistic abilities are specialized, similar to having a ‘mental organ’
for language
In contrast to the prevailing ideas in the 1950s- children do not learn
by imitating adults
Children extract rules from the input they receive e.g English past
tense play-played gets over-generalized to go-goed

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 7 / 24

Modularity approach

Prominent proponents include Noam Chomsky, Jerry Fodor

Linguistic abilities are specialized, similar to having a ‘mental organ’
for language
In contrast to the prevailing ideas in the 1950s- children do not learn
by imitating adults
Children extract rules from the input they receive e.g English past
tense play-played gets over-generalized to go-goed
They also acquire language without explicit instruction at a young
age; adults only occasionally correct their mistakes

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 7 / 24

Modularity approach

Prominent proponents include Noam Chomsky, Jerry Fodor

Linguistic abilities are specialized, similar to having a ‘mental organ’
for language
In contrast to the prevailing ideas in the 1950s- children do not learn
by imitating adults
Children extract rules from the input they receive e.g English past
tense play-played gets over-generalized to go-goed
They also acquire language without explicit instruction at a young
age; adults only occasionally correct their mistakes
This is only possible when children have an innate ability to form
complex linguistic structures

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 7 / 24

Modularity approach

Prominent proponents include Noam Chomsky, Jerry Fodor

Linguistic abilities are specialized, similar to having a ‘mental organ’
for language
In contrast to the prevailing ideas in the 1950s- children do not learn
by imitating adults
Children extract rules from the input they receive e.g English past
tense play-played gets over-generalized to go-goed
They also acquire language without explicit instruction at a young
age; adults only occasionally correct their mistakes
This is only possible when children have an innate ability to form
complex linguistic structures
A general purpose problem solving or pattern matching ability won’t
have an impact in such an environment

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 7 / 24

Modularity approach

The goal of linguistics in Chomskyan terms was to describe how this

mental module generates grammatically correct sentences in language
Primacy given to syntactic ability e.g. Colourless green ideas sleep
furiously
The above statement is grammatically correct, yet semantically void
Syntactic structure represents information independently of the words
(and the communicative intent) of the speakers
Being able to generate such strings is unique and cannot be derived
from other cognitive abilities
Grammar as a set of rules for generating novel combinations of words

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General intelligence vs. language

Specific Language impairment is a condition where patients develop

language specific deficits, despite having no brain injury/lesions
They do not have any other cognitive deficits or perceptual problems
But they struggle with the use of function words, inflections on
nouns, verbs
E.g. Meowmeow chase mice.
SLI children produce past tense marker on verbs much less predictably
as compared to normal children
They cannot see the similarity between Mother is hard to please and
It is hard to please Mother
Can language develop normally when general intelligence is impaired?

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Genetic disorders

Klinefelter’s syndrome is a genetic/chromosomal disorder that shows

selective syntactic and semantic deficits in language, but otherwise
intact intelligence
Turner’s syndrome has the opposite- normal language skills, advanced
reading abilities but visual and spatial deficits
One cognitive domain develops normally- but abnormal development
in other domains
Underscores the biological basis of language, and its autonomy from
other abilities

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‘General purpose’ approach

Goal is to describe a range of human abilities like visual object

recognition, general problem solving
Experiments in cognitive psychology explored the idea that humans
have internal representations and have a set of processes to transform
these representations
Sheperd and Metzler’s mental rotation experiment consisting of pairs
of three dimensional figures

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Identify whether the pairs are identical

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While A and B are identical, C are mirror-image objects
As the difference in the angle of rotation between the pairs increased,
participants had a harder time confirming their identity
The experimenters surmised that a mental image of the first shape is
being incrementally adjusted in orientation until a match occurs
Greater the angle of rotation, more time required
What is the cognitive machinery that makes this possible?
Information processing that is unconscious takes place- we perceive
the object then transform it in various ways

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Mind as information processor

Mental operations as steps in an algorithm

Subdivide mental tasks such as language comprehension into a series
of steps
All human abilities can be explained as a set of internal
representations and processes that transform those representations
Create a model to formalize these mental abilities and compare its
output to human behaviour

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‘General purpose approach’

These practitioners were psychologists and computer scientists. Their

aim was to build computational models of cognition (John Anderson,
Alan Newell)

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‘General purpose approach’

These practitioners were psychologists and computer scientists. Their

aim was to build computational models of cognition (John Anderson,
Alan Newell)
They developed tools (similar to a programming language) that
allowed cognitive scientists to construct a cognitive model

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 15 / 24

‘General purpose approach’

These practitioners were psychologists and computer scientists. Their

aim was to build computational models of cognition (John Anderson,
Alan Newell)
They developed tools (similar to a programming language) that
allowed cognitive scientists to construct a cognitive model
These models did not rely on language-specific algorithms or
knowledge

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 15 / 24

‘General purpose approach’

These practitioners were psychologists and computer scientists. Their

aim was to build computational models of cognition (John Anderson,
Alan Newell)
They developed tools (similar to a programming language) that
allowed cognitive scientists to construct a cognitive model
These models did not rely on language-specific algorithms or
knowledge
Emphasis on learning, particularly general-purpose learning (not
innate structures)

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 15 / 24

‘General purpose approach’

These practitioners were psychologists and computer scientists. Their

aim was to build computational models of cognition (John Anderson,
Alan Newell)
They developed tools (similar to a programming language) that
allowed cognitive scientists to construct a cognitive model
These models did not rely on language-specific algorithms or
knowledge
Emphasis on learning, particularly general-purpose learning (not
innate structures)
Similar such models were used to test sentence comprehension,
metaphor use, story understanding

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 15 / 24

Connectionism

In the 1980s rule-based AI systems were replaced by connectionist

models
Sejnowski, Grossberg and Rumelhart were some of the prominent
researchers
Artifical neural networks (ANN) were used to abstract away from the
biological details of neural functioning, and capture general principles
ANN were trained rather than programmed - this simulated the
gradual learning from experience, rather than innate mechanisms
Rumelhart and others were able to train a model to learn the English
past tense- and simulate the over-generalization errors made by
children
The basic underlying architecture was similar to what was being used
to model motor and and visual behaviour:- this supported a common
computational architecture

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Brain plasticity

We have already seen evidence of the lateralization of language to the

left hemisphere

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 17 / 24

Brain plasticity

We have already seen evidence of the lateralization of language to the

left hemisphere
Numerous studies show a sensitivity of the left hemisphere to
language in one-week infants

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 17 / 24

Brain plasticity

We have already seen evidence of the lateralization of language to the

left hemisphere
Numerous studies show a sensitivity of the left hemisphere to
language in one-week infants
At the same time, there is evidence that in these early stages, the
brain can be incredibly flexible i.e. have plasticity

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 17 / 24

Brain plasticity

We have already seen evidence of the lateralization of language to the

left hemisphere
Numerous studies show a sensitivity of the left hemisphere to
language in one-week infants
At the same time, there is evidence that in these early stages, the
brain can be incredibly flexible i.e. have plasticity
Patients with severe epilepsy sometimes undergo hemispherectomy
i.e removal of an entire hemisphere of the brain

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 17 / 24

Brain plasticity

We have already seen evidence of the lateralization of language to the

left hemisphere
Numerous studies show a sensitivity of the left hemisphere to
language in one-week infants
At the same time, there is evidence that in these early stages, the
brain can be incredibly flexible i.e. have plasticity
Patients with severe epilepsy sometimes undergo hemispherectomy
i.e removal of an entire hemisphere of the brain
If the left hemisphere is removed in young children, they can
re-acquire a linguistic system, post-surgery

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 17 / 24

Brain plasticity

We have already seen evidence of the lateralization of language to the

left hemisphere
Numerous studies show a sensitivity of the left hemisphere to
language in one-week infants
At the same time, there is evidence that in these early stages, the
brain can be incredibly flexible i.e. have plasticity
Patients with severe epilepsy sometimes undergo hemispherectomy
i.e removal of an entire hemisphere of the brain
If the left hemisphere is removed in young children, they can
re-acquire a linguistic system, post-surgery
The right hemisphere can ‘take over’ many of the functions of the left
hemisphere, at least in early stages (brains of children)

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 17 / 24

Brain plasticity

We have already seen evidence of the lateralization of language to the

left hemisphere
Numerous studies show a sensitivity of the left hemisphere to
language in one-week infants
At the same time, there is evidence that in these early stages, the
brain can be incredibly flexible i.e. have plasticity
Patients with severe epilepsy sometimes undergo hemispherectomy
i.e removal of an entire hemisphere of the brain
If the left hemisphere is removed in young children, they can
re-acquire a linguistic system, post-surgery
The right hemisphere can ‘take over’ many of the functions of the left
hemisphere, at least in early stages (brains of children)
While lateralization does take place, it is not pre-determined (as these
cases show)

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 17 / 24

Cognitive Neuroscience

Cognitive neuroscience as a field grew out of work in traditional

neuroscience and cognitive science
They differ from the tradition in cognitive modelling - cognition
cannot be studied abstractly
They wish to evaluate hypotheses like modularity and general purpose
cognition
The goal is to understand complex cognitive abilities with reference to
their neural underpinnings
Maintain that regional specialization (localization) exists in the brain,
but it doesn’t necessarily imply modularity of cognitive functions
Further, the brain is plastic- the auditory area in deaf individuals
begins to participate in visual and gestural language
Language acquisition itself is also heavily dependent on experience

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Complex interaction

Language according to neuroscientists like Jeffrey Elman and

Elizabeth Bates is not genetic but epigenetic
Language is a behaviour that results from the interaction of genes
and the environment
Epigenetic development is the proposal that behavior results from a
complex dynamic evolution of genes and environmental forces during
prenatal and postnatal development.

While a biological component exists, it evolves before and after birth

in tandem with the environmental forces

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 Summary of ideas
Timeline Movement Source of Lang/Cog
constraints
1957-now Chomskyan lin- innate Language as
guistics unique
1960s - 1980s AI/Psychology learned Suject to same
Connectionism principles
1990s - now Cognitive Neuro- dynamic in- complex similari-
science teraction ties and differences

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Language and Cognition

Are language and cognition separate mental faculties?

Did language emerge from general cognitive abilities?
And in a slightly different vein- what is the relationship between
language and thought ? Does one influence the other?

(HUL 242 ) Brain and Language II 19th Jan, 2023 21 / 24

Language and Thought

Does the grammatical structure/vocabulary of language influence our

thought
Do people who speak different languages think differently?
Hypothesis that the use of language influences how people perceive
the world around them :- Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
Sapir “human beings .... are very much at the mercy of the particular
language which has become the medium of expression for their
society”
The strongest form of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is called linguistic
determinism :- language we speak determines how we perceive and
think about the world
Linguistic determinism: If in a language blue and green are described
using the same term, the speakers cannot perceive the difference
between the two

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Light blue and dark blue

Russian has two terms for blue: light blue goluboy and dark blue:
siniy
Before referring to a blue object, the speakers must decide which
category of blue it belongs to-
Russian forces its speakers to make a categorial distinction between
these two types of objects
Russian and English speakers were tested in an experiment: both
given a card with three colour squares on them- they had to pick the
two squares that matched
Sometimes all these squares were light blue, sometimes all were dark
blue- and some were mixed
English and Russian speakers should respond identically to this
matching task: if all human beings saw colour the same way
Or- Russian speakers would have an advantage when there is a
contrast between light and dark blue
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Russian speakers were faster and more accurate than English speakers
when there were light and dark blue squares
These speakers were also slower when all the squares were completely
light blue or completely dark blue
For English speakers, there was no appreciable differences between
judging the square colours
Language does influence our cognition in a way as languages encode
categories differently and speakers might think about the world in
different ways - linguistic relativism

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References

Language and Cognition ( entry in the Encyclopedia of Cognitive

Science) 2006 by Catherine Harris

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