Language and Communication in Psychology

Through detailed consideration of one selected area of investigation evaluate the progress fall upon by researchers in developing explanations of key aspects of the psychology of phrase and communication. The guide of words is frequently debated in different theories of human genius. The importance of language is relevant when it to comes to the ply of philosophers, neuroscientist, humanist and psychologist. Language has been applicable to Aristotle, Plato, Hume, Locke, Freud and Skinner. This essay seeks in investigating the definition of language and communication.In doing so traditional language theories will be assessed, this will later be compared to modern progression by researchers in developing explanations of the psychology of language and communication. The victimisation of language and language disorders will be evaluated in order to successfully investigate the modern approaches to language. Firstly, the evaluation of language, its origins, a provided and the engr oss have been investigated in areas such as computational theory, cognitive neuroscience, evolutional and ethnical psychology in contemporary studies of language.Language is usually seen as strategys for example English, French and Italian even seen as corpses of language it can be apply to describe other things because of its broad definition, In describing music for instance or art. These areas can have its own language that needs to be learnt to understand and stage music for example. Language in general can be apply in any form of communication. Since language is broad it is important to study limited areas of language, instead of its general definition (Bloom, .P, 2007) . This is so that direct questions can be answered. As a result the narrow questioned being investigated can be mouth to other systems of language. It is known that some form of language is used everyday, linguistics is dedicated field of the scientific study of everyday language and even though the broad term is difficult to define, linguists believe that language is a formal system of agreed rules that have to be followed by a speaker.In this system there is the addition of morphology to a fault known as the formation of words, syntax the formation of phrases and phonology, sound systems (Fromkin 2000). Secondly, Charles Dawins works have been used as a platform in the belief that man has an instinctive magnetic inclination to speak, as we see in the babble of our young children whilst no child has an instinctive tendency to brew, bake, or write Darwin (1871). This gives the idea that language comes natural, that humans have been biologically jut outed to speak.Neurological studies support the idea that language is part of the human nature through the investigations of dedicated parts of the mindset for language. It is believed that this might explain why every human society has language. The idea has hence raised questions as to whether language is innate or a cultural innov ation. Language deficits and aphasia has been investigated in recent studies to prove what happens when these dedicated parts for language are damaged.The works of cognitive neuropsychologist is to use theoretical frameworks and methods to specific language impairments. During the initial stages of Cognitive neuropsychological (in the second half of the nineteenth century) neurologists such as Lichtheim, Wernicke and Bastian began to make assumption close to the design of the whiz and its fixed language touch systems (Coltheart, 2006) this brought about the box-and-arrow diagrams in an attempt to demonstrate the sensations architecture.In taking this thought progress, how these components in the brain were localised was also studied. Even though at the time the cognitive function of language was non proved, by the failed attempt of localising the brain, it was relevant in influencing the work of other psychologist, an example is the later simplified version conducted by Colthe art. The work of Lichtheim, Wernicke and Bastian, received a lot of criticism from neurologist that were not cognitively point such as Head (1926) this led to fall in cognitive neuropsychological and the rise of behaviourism.Shallice, (1988) have suggested that cognitive neuropsychological data are similarly noisy and there difficult in being used further than exploring the brains functional architecture. Others such as McCloskey & Caramazza, (1991) have argued against this point. Stating that there shouldnt be a restriction on what data produced cognitive theory at any arbitrary level of detail. Thirdly, It was not until the mid twentieth century that there was a Cognitive revolution with the work of Broadbent (1956), Chomsky, (1959) Miller, Galanter, & Pribram,(1960), also study from Marshall and Newcombe (1966, 1973) looking into cognitive neuropsychology of reading and from Shallice and Warrington (1970) memory. This also included the work into the development of researching s entence process in aphasia, where linguistic and psycholinguistic theory were prudent for the analysis of aphasic symptoms (Caramazza & Zurif, 1976 Marin, Saffran, & Schwartz, 1976). A substantial amount of evidence afterwards has been produced in showing modularity in the brain.This shows that even though language is specifically located in the brain it is split into separate stages that may selectively be disrupted. (Berndt, Basili and Caramazza 1987) it is therefore established that specific lesions (in specific parts of the brain dedicated to language) will not affect the entire language process. This might see a persevering losing the ability to understand spoken word but retain the ability to repeat words, suggesting that there are separate modules responsible for separate actions in the brain. (Schwartz,Saffran, & Marin, 1980)Fodor (1983) was also in support of the modularity of the brain after incorporating some of the ideas that were developed in cognitive neuropsycholog ical. Foder describes a module as a domain specific. This is where the brain stores tuition that is responsible for a specific mental representation. For instance speech perception uses a separate path then that used in different audile analysis and controls only acoustic signals, perceived as utterances. D. Bishop (1997). Superior cognitive functions can not affect the processes of modules in the brain, known as information encapsulation. In this processing becomes fixed.The fact that modular processing can not be influenced by higher cognitive operations describes the term. It is difficult to take no name of incoming speecheven if attention is not used for receiving speech, a response will take place one will immediately oppose on hearing a relevant sound for instance a someone own name (Foder 1983). Fodor with the support of evolutionary arguments states that the brain complex system can be broken down into layers, through case studies of selective impaired patients having a particular effect on the process of language. He believes that language therefore is innate and pre- programmed in humans.Human studies have relied wholly on researches regarding nature. The main reasons for carrying out functional neuroimaging are to improve peoples take on the variant anatomical functions of language. This then leads on to the argument thats the much debated Brocas area which is linked to speech production can be subdivided into three regions, a posterior and superior region that is knobbed with sounds of language, an interior and ventral region that is involved with intend of words and a regions between the other two that is involved with meaning conveyed by sentences.Research carried out during the analysis on the anatomy and physiological aspects of the auditory processing in animals, show specific revelations regarding how the human brain perceives and process speech. Ignoring the concerns of critics, Researchers studying this phenomenon have resorted to us ing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography ( dearie) (which was introduced as a basic brute for monitoring language and brain activities) with the exception of people affected by induced nervous disorders such as stroke, to produce valuable evaluation, with regards to how language is organise in the human brain.Critics believe this is another example of wasted effort especially with the exclusion of patients with neurological disorders as study showed that this illness affects mainly the accessible and professional lives of those affected and sometimes it is not enough to impair their speech recognition abilities. PET has four advantages for the study of language (i) it does not lose esthesia and spatial localisation in important anterior and medial temporal lobe organizes, a (current) problem with fMRI due to susceptibility artefacts and geometric shifts4,,5 (ii) its lower spatial resolution makes it orders of magnitude less susceptible t o movement artefacts time-locked to stimulus and response, as occurs with overt articulation (most fMRI studies of word retrieval use covert responses) (iii) it does not create the din that is a feature of data acquisition in an MR scanner, requiring special techniques when important acoustic features in auditory stimuli may be masked6 and (iv) in the serial study of aphasic patients, it is the authors anecdotal experience that patients are far more likely to agree to come back for a second PET scan than to go back into a MRI magnet, a much more intimidating environment. Coltheart (2005).Technological development such as the scanning of the brain has been shown to be critical in the work of language processing. Since language is built into the brain PET scans is useful method in watching the brain at work with the use of basic words. The area of the brain that is activated during the process of language can be identified (recognition of words). Further studies on thought processing (especially with regards to language) shows that certain(a) groups of people were not able to process language normally. a group has to be anatomically normalized into the same stereotactic space. To allow for individual variations of gyral and sulcal anatomy, the pictorial matter data have to be smoothed. This is because of the problem of lesion distribution.Ablation studies in non-human animals are placed with great care, and often post mortem examinations are performed after the behavioural experiments to assert the boundaries of the lesion. The unsubtle lesions occurring as the consequence of cerebrovascular disease, necrotising viral infections, etc. may destroy cortex, local white matter connections, major white matter tracts connecting unlike cortical regions, sub-cortical nuclei, and their reciprocal connections with cortical areas. No lesion experiment in a non-human animal, relating structure to function, would be accepted for publication if clipping of a major arteri al branch produced the focal injury. Coltheart (2005)It is clear that studies on the human brain have been dependant on nature experiments with the application of liberal scientific standard. This has therefore allowed certain syndromes to be associated to lesions. This sometimes have been related to marked inter-subject distinction in the cortical organisation of function, which, would mean that studies of structurefunction relationships in the human, other than wee perceptual and motor processes, are meaningless. It would seem much more plausible that broadly similar clinical syndromes may result from very differently sited cortical, sub-cortical or tract lesions within distributed neural systems that are immanently similar between subjects with the same handedness and uneventful development. Coltheart (2005) The data from useful neuroimaging is a vital character to the perspective of language and its structure. It is therefore useful when used on normal subjects in pinpointin g where modular language processors are. The traditional Brocas area in the left field frontal gyrus can be divided further into three parts it has been argued one that is posterior and superior and is involved in the sound structure (phonology) of language a second, anterior and ventral that is concerned with the meaning of words (semantics) and a third, lying in-between the first two regions, that is involved in meaning conveyed by sentence structure (syntax).Of particular clinical relevance is the ability to determine shifts of function after focal brain lesions and how these may be potentially modified or even induced by behavioural or drug therapy. Caplan (2006) The recent cognitive studies have been useful in producing architecture and process of the brain but there are few studies that evaluate the technique of neuroimaging in a negative manner. Poeppel, (1996) states that neuroimaging so far has told us nothing about the mind so far. In support of this notion Orden and Paap (1997) agree that nothing has been learnt from neuroimaging and never will. It is believed that complexity of cognition can not produces evidence through this technique.Henson (2005) has provided a vital framework for considering the role of brainimaging data in cognitive psychology. He writes My main argument is that, provided one makes the assumption that there is some systematic chromosome mapping from psychological function to brain structure, then functional neuroimaging data simply comprise another dependent variable, along with behavioural data, that can be used to distinguish between competing psychological theories (p. 194). This idea recognises that there is some systematic mapping from psychological function to the structure of the brain. To conclude, Cognitive neuropsychology can be easily seen as a branch of cognitive psychology which has been vital to study of language and how it is urbane in the brain.It has been useful in creating theories through the study of subje cts performance in which normal cognition are identified. There have been several studies in support of how the language is processed in the brain to further prove or disprove these theories. The studies of these damaged sections have been able to be looked at through the advancement of technology. These scans have been able to explain a rate of questions about the processing of language in the brain for instance, the lateralized view of the human brain. This has also been observed in animals that also use sound for communication e. g. monkeys birds and dolphins. In this the control of sound production is usually in the left hemisphere also seen in humans.The two major areas of the human brain that are responsible for language are the Brocas area ,this is partially responsible for putting sentences together and using correct syntax secondly the Wernickes area, which is partially responsible for language processing (untangling others sentences and analyzing them for syntax, inflecti on, etc. ). Broca aphasia is used to describe if the Broca areas is damaged. side effects show slow, hesitant speech that lack grammer. Typical Brocas aphasics can not words not essential to the significance of the sentence, such as the and and. When the Wernicke area is damaged then it is known as Wernickes aphasia. It can be seen as opposite to Brocas aphasia.Wernickes aphasics are able to make general sentences but they are often senseless and include made-up words. Wernickes aphasics show signs of understanding others speech, but have difficulty naming objects Other types of aphasia noteworthy in brain-damaged patients can show even worse effects. If Wernickes and Brocas area are disconnected, patients struggle to repeat sentence said out to them. This shows that there is the possibility Wernickes area, which has processed the sentence heard, is unable to communicate it to Brocas area for repetition. In another type, Wernickes and Brocas areas remain connected but cannot commun icate with the rest of the brain. Patients can only repeat sentences but fail to speak on impulse speech (Pinker 1994).