About the Brain, Speech, Music, Reading and Motivation.
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LITERACY | READING | ABOUT THE BRAIN
- SEE ABOUT READING
- ABOUT THE BRAIN AND LEARNING
- HOW DOES THE BRAIN WORK?
- Interdisciplinary Social Rhythm Researchers
- Why is Play Important to learning?
- Why is Laughter Important to learning?
- MUSIC MAKES YOU SMARTER RESEARCH
- Music and Intelligence citations PDF
- Intelligence is inherited controversary
HOW DOES THE CEREBRAL CORTEX WORK?
Learning, Attention, and Grouping by the Laminar Circuits of Visual Cortex by Stephen Grossberg* Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems and Center for Adaptive Systems Boston University.
Abstract New Scientist 'New language circuit discovered in humans' points out that between 5-7 years of age is when people develop reading and writing skills.
On Language Acquisition and Brain Development
The following points are made by Kuniyoshi L. Sakai (Full Text at ScienceWeek 2005 310:815):
1) A child acquires any natural languages within a few years, without the aid of analytical thinking and without explicit "grammar" instruction as usually taught in school. The origin of grammatical rules should thus be ascribed to an innate system in the human brain. The knowledge of and competence for human language is acquired through various means and modality types. Linguists regard speaking, signing, and language comprehension as primary faculties of language, i.e., innate or inherent and biologically determined, whereas they regard reading and writing as secondary abilities.
2) Indeed, the native or first language (L1) is acquired during the first years of life through such primary faculties while children are rapidly expanding their linguistic knowledge. In contrast, reading and writing are learned with much conscious effort and repetition, usually at school. This ability may be influenced by cultural rather than biological factors. However, the existence of developmental dyslexics indicates that reading ability requires specific neural mechanisms, and a link between poor reading and impaired auditory resolution has been suggested.
Controversial Theory Linking Reading Ability to Specific Brain Region Gets a Boost
More than a century ago, a French neurologist suggested that a specific region of the brain processes the visual images of words. Without it, he postulated, people cannot read except by laboriously recognizing letter after letter, rather than whole words. Yet humans have only been able to read for several thousand years--perhaps not enough time for such a trait to evolve, some scientists have argued. New research, however, supports the idea that reading does rely on a localized set of neurons.
Previous imaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or positron emission tomography (PET) showed that a small region buried deep in the left rear of the brain lit up with activity when subjects read, or recognized words, as opposed to perceiving other objects, such as faces or tools. Victims of stroke with damage in this region often reported reading difficulty. But because stroke damage in these patients was never confined to this region alone and imaging studies can only demonstrate correlation, not causation, controversy persisted.
Neurologist Laurent Cohen of the Hopital de la Salpetriere and his colleagues received a rare opportunity to explore this hole in scientific understanding when a 46-year-old epileptic came to them for treatment. His chronic seizures indicated that a small portion of his brain--roughly contiguous with the so-called visual word-form area--should be removed.
Prior to removing the damaged section, the scientists performed a series of tests on the man, including a wide array of reading challenges and the temporary placement of electrodes in his brain. He proved normal in all regards, including his ability to quickly recognize words no matter how many letters they contained.
But two weeks after the operation, though cured of his epilepsy, the patient complained of difficulty reading and tests showed that his ability to comprehend longer words had slowed by half. Even six months later, he needed roughly an additional 100 milliseconds for each additional letter to recognize a word.
The finding seems to support the contention that this region of the brain is critical to reading, but it does not answer questions as to how it developed. "One possibility is that the [visual word-form area] performs a visual processing function that predisposed it to being co-opted for reading," Alex Martin of the National Institute of Mental Health writes in a commentary accompanying the paper in today's Neuron. Nevertheless, the French team has provided more evidence that this region is critical to your ability to read this article. --David Biello
It don't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing . . .
~ Duke Ellington
"Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler".
~ Albert Einstein
A Way with Words
Do languages help mold the way we think? By JR Minkel
A controversial idea from the 1930s is getting a second look.
William Calvin's "The Cerebral Code" (MIT Press 1996).
A proposed mechanism for word selection and articulation is the theory of hexagonal mosaics and Darwin machines
RHYTHM, MELODY and HARMONY
Stimulate several areas of the brain, suggesting that music could be used to help repair everything from damaged speech to damaged emotions.
BRAIN RESEARCH CONTINUES TO PROVIDE EVIDENCE CORRELATING THE STUDY OF MUSIC WITH INCREASED INTELLIGENCE
New brain research has discovered that the area of the brain which allows us to understand whether a sentence makes sense, and processes the syntax or word arrangement in a sentence, also activates when people hear a musical chord in the wrong place in a traditional progression of chords.
The evidence, found by Burkhard Maess and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in Leipzig, Germany, suggests that the human brain recognizes the constituents of musical and linguistic sequences in the same way. "It looks like tonal syntax is closely analogous to the part of language we call grammar," says Carol Krumhansl, a psychologist at Cornell University in New York who studies music perception.
The work is "very exciting," says Krumhansl because little is understood about why we possess an ability to appreciate music. Understanding how syntactic information is processed in the brain, "might provide some basic insight about why we have music," she argues.
This research provides further confirmation that musical training enhances verbal abilities. Musical training refines the area of the brain necessary for reading and verbal skills.