Study Guide for Chapter 20

1.        What is aphasia?

2.        What was Broca’s original conclusion about  a language area in the brain? Has this conclusion been supported by modern science?

3.        What is the Wada procedure and why might it be performed?

4.        What does it mean for a hemisphere to be dominant for a particular behavior or function?

5.        What are the primary deficits seen in Broca’s aphasia? 

6.        What are the primary characteristics of Wernicke’s aphasia?

7.        What did Wernicke conclude about “Broca’s area” and “Wernicke’s Area” with respect to language areas in the brain?

8.        What are the critical structures in the Wernicke-Geschwind model of language? What is the flow of information when someone repeats a spoken word? What is the flow information        

            takes when someone repeats a written word?

9.        What are the primary problems with the Wernicke-Geschwind model of language processing?

10.      Describe conduction aphasia in terms of symptom and structure. How well does the Wernicke-Geschwind model predict this type of aphasia?

11.      What important conclusions about language processing can we draw from patients with aphasia who are bilingual or are deaf?

12.      Why would someone have their corpus callosum severed (this is called a callosotomy)?

13.      How would you present different stimuli to each hemisphere in a patient who has had his or her corpus callosum severed?  When this is done, what kinds of findings are obtained 

           with  respect to verbal reports about objects presented visually or through touch?

14.      How might you summarize the overall findings regarding “split brain” patents?

15.      Do studies utilizing electrical brain stimulation support or refute the conclusions drawn from studies of patients with aphasia? What about studies utilizing PET imaging?