Psychology by Wade and Travis
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According to Dr. Michael Posner, Bilingual epileptic patients can lose the capability to speak one language during a seizure, while retaining the other one. The operational definition (the meaning of the question being observed) of “losing the capability to speak” is unclear. If Dr. Posner meant the definition to be how we execute speech, then there was damage to the patients Brocas area. Brocas area is in the frontal lobe, and is responsible for the production of speech. So if this is true, Dr. Posner believes two languages are processed in two different parts is false.
Wernickes area is responsible for simple semantics in language. The patient lost the ability to speak one language, not the ability to understand it. Thus, both of the languages semantic understandings are not proven to be processed in different parts of the brain.
2.
Dr. Gutin is the hospitals chief of neurosurgery. The removal of a tumor during neurosurgery requires surgeons to remove tissue. He states that most aspects of language are found on one hemisphere of the brain, whereas visual and hearing are found on both sides of the brain.
This is a dilemma for surgeons he says, because when removing a tumor, if tissue is cut out of a language aspect area, the ability to speak or understand language can be lost. This is not the case with visual and hearing areas, which can handle the removal of tissue because the other part of the brain will take over. The visual cortex is located in the occipital lobes. The cortex visual signals are in charge of the opposite hemispheres vision. This being true, the removal of tissue from a visual area of one hemisphere, WILL damage visual signals to the opposite hemisphere.
The writer also states that if a language aspect area in the brain gets tissue removed, one can lose the ability to speak or understand English. But if the tumor is left untreated, that ability plus other major health complications are likely. The surgeon is better off giving precise language tests to figure out where these critical areas are located, and/or making more careful tissue removals.
3.
Gutin statement that language aspects are found on one hemisphere of the brain is very vague. The “high-level aspects of language” are found in Wernickes area, which handles language comprehension, and Brocas area, speech production. Both Wernickes area and Brocas area are located in the LEFT hemisphere.