Questions

Discussion Questions

 1.    How is the brain composed?

A. The brain is composed of a right and left cerebral hemisphere, joined by the corpus callosum, a network of more than 200 million fibers.

 2.    What is the cortex?

A. The cortex is the surface of the brain, often called “gray matter”, consisting of billions of neurons and glial cells.

 3.    What is lateralization?

A. Lateralization is the term used to refer to the localization of function to one hemisphere of the brain.

 4.    What are the two main areas of the brain related to language?

A.  Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area.

 5.    What is aphasia?

A. Aphasia is the neurological term for any language disorder that results from acquired brain damage caused by disease or trauma.

 6.    Where is language lateralized?

A. Language is lateralized to the left hemisphere, and the left hemisphere appears to be the language hemisphere from infancy on.

 7.    What are the aphasic syndromes?

A. The aphasic syndromes are Broca’s aphasia and Wernicke’s aphasia.

 8.    What about people who were subjected to Split-brain surgery?

A. The two hemispheres appear to be independent, and messages sent to the brain result in different responses, depending on which side receives the message.

 9.    What is Dichotic listening?

A. Dichotic listening is an experimental technique that uses auditory signals to observe the behavior of the individual hemispheres of the human brain.

 10. According to the Dichotic listening, which side of the brain is for language and which side is for sounds?

A. The left side of the brain is specialized for language, and the right side is specialized for sounds.