The Science of Language pt 2 of 3 (language perception)

Language Perception 

Understanding what makes up perceptions and why we arrive at different conclusions despite having similar information is a topic of discussion in neuroscience. It is one thing to say genetics, environment, and life factors and another to map such causes to their apt effect. 

Psychologists such as Maslow, Freud, and Horney made predictions about how such behaviors may affect someone later in life. Psychiatrists have made correlations between particular life events, such as childhood trauma and increased probability of mental disorders. Neuroscientists can look at the brain of patients with a condition and see which areas are affected. 

However, why certain pieces of information are more valuable to Jake than Emma, or why Jake is naturally a phenomenal chef and poor communicator and Emma a poor chef and great communicator, offers challenges to the field of neuroscience. It is one thing to say Jake has more neuronal connectivity in brain region x and Emma in brain region y, and another to know why it is easier and more difficult for each individual to create neural associations across various brain regions. To better understand what separates Jake and Emma into two distinct individuals, let's first look at what makes up perception.

One of the first steps to perception consolidation is attention, or the ability to focus one's attention on a singular thing (Lodge et al., 2019). And attention is context-dependent since it arises from our senses. 

For example, rods and cones are important for perceiving luminance (light brightness). The LGN and visual cortex are important for perceiving the world (object, distance, motion) around us through our eyes. Additionally, the ears are important for collecting sound, amplifying it in the middle ear, and sending a neural signal into the right and left auditory cortex for sound perception. And the same holds for our other senses, and often many of these distinct perceptions are interconnected and dissociated depending on the required task. 

For instance, when performing a cognitive task such as listening to new information, we often forget we are sitting and lose touch with our sensory perception. However, if we are in pain while listening to the information, we might be constantly aware of the discomfort and able to still engage in the cognitive task, but not as well. 

Think of it this way; if we are trying to consolidate the material, our biology will reinforce the senses and neural connections that will help and temporarily reduce activation in areas that won’t promote context-specific attention. 

How our biology knows what it needs to do or why some people are better at focusing than others can partially be elucidated through the lens of genetics, our current health, and internal states promoting dopamine, norepinephrine, and other neurotransmitter activation and inhibition, including current hormonal profiles such as testosterone, DHT, FT, and estrogen, may explain some of the components that increase our attention span and the desire to learn. 

Dopamine, for instance, is the primary neurotransmitter that motivates us to learn (Bromberg-Martin et al., 2010), noradrenaline is essential for attention (Prokopova, 2010), and testosterone is valuable for increasing the urgency to pursue and become more dominant in new material (Mazur et al., 1998). 

And when taking into consideration life experiences and the neuronal connectivity that it incites and inhibits, including current health status, hormonal homeostasis, and our genetics that predispose us toward various affinities, inclinations, and even unfortunate health outcomes, we can vaguely see how so much of what we are is because we are uniquely different from everyone else (even if some things are similar). 

And so it is; how we learn, understand, and perceive the world might differ from others despite activating similar brain regions shown on an fMRI. 

Language Perception pt. 2

Language is our most valuable asset for perceiving, consolidating, and communicating the endless streams of information around us. Think about it! We share using language, we often think in language, reading requires language, and complex problem-solving requires the usage of language. Language helps us understand by defining the characteristics of objects x and y and setting a framework for differentiation. And language, as earlier discussed through the lens of perception, is not one singular thing, meaning it isn’t just verbal inflection. Instead, it is the exposition and representative of all sensory perceptions. 

In other words, language is the intermediary between person one perception and person two integration (Perlovsky et al., 2011). If I smell something pleasant, I may react by closing my eyelids and taking a deep breath. By doing this, I am communicating to the observer that the aromatic environment around me is not threatening but pleasurable. 

And if the bystander doesn’t notice anything outstanding about the smell, they may have to shift their perspective and assume my posture reflects some other motive. The fascinating thing is that we make those associations all the time and depend on our discernment and the discernment of others to come to a sensible rationale.

Let's suppose that the observer walks into the room and asks what I am doing, and I respond with, I’m meditating. In that case, not only will the bystander loosely understand the word meditation but also create an abstraction or synthesis of what it means to meditate and why one would opt to do so. 

Suppose the bystander’s rationale for meditating is undeveloped, nearsighted, or different, and associates it with a negative valence. In that case, it is conceivable that I will be warped into that negative outlook independent of my discernment. And so it is, independent of the facts and possibilities for interpretation, in that instance, there will be an unspoken claim about my identity and personality. In this case, we see how visually similar facts can result in different perceptions. Furthermore, one can see how consolidating this information through the guidance of everyone's limited and unique view of the world can further strengthen, weaken, or confound interpretation of the events around us. 

It is rarely the surfacing of facts that governs most of our day-to-day perception, but instead, what does, is how neatly our interpretation falls within the framework of our perception. And, of course, our perception has to somewhat align with the truth to move through the world, but it doesn’t have to be the truth— and often, it isn’t.

Instead, what we can do to understand more about language and how it manifests is to observe the brain. And when scientists do either indirectly through the context of animal studies, language and memory disorders, and fMRI scanning, we notice similarities across people.

For example, scientists have shown that the prefrontal cortex, if damaged, affects one's ability to switch between cognitive tasks, short-term memory, and attention (Wimmer et al., 2015), which suggests the importance of the PFC for short-term memory. Moreover, suppose Broca’s area of the frontal lobe (Acharya et al., 2022) or Wernick’s area (Acharya et al., 2022) in the temporal lobe is damaged. In that case, one's capacity to understand and process speech can significantly reduce. And the same holds for many regions and structures of the brain, as language processing, understanding, and communicating are more like a web of connectivity rather than an isolated ingredient. 

For instance, if I am communicating a sad event, I may activate more of the amygdala and hippocampus, indirectly influencing my perception, how I relay the information and my word choice. And this, to some degree, occurs independently of how I want to present myself (Anderson et al., 2007). 

On the other hand, if I am relaying something that I am enthusiastic or excited about, I may have higher dopamine secretion in the VTA and expression across the brain, predisposing me to react and communicate in a specific manner that shows my enthusiasm (Schuster et al., 2022). All of this is to say that, in large part, our language, communication, and perception are influenced by our emotions, receptivity, and brain plasticity.

Next Article

In the following article, part 3 of 3, we will examine brain plasticity and why it is important to language. Then we will examine why learning a language is easier for a child, and lastly, how we can use neuroscience to improve our vocabulary, delivery, and comprehension of information. Though I suspect, I may write a separate article on this last point.

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