Language and the Brain

Language and its production in certain areas of the brain has long been a source of fascination for scientists. There have, over time, been many methods to achieve this, often using an electroencephalogram (EEG). Last Monday Carleton University unveiled its new Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience: Language and Brain, which has taken a year to build and cost a mere $334,000.

Receiving the majority of its funding from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the lab’s EEG tracks patterns of electrical activity within the brain while the participant carries out a number of tasks. The EEG is one of three new pieces of technology in the centre, the other two being the Eyelink 1000, a machine that can track the eye movements of a participant and recording equipment used to study speech.

Dr. Masako Hirotani, director of the new centre explains "Combining the brain waves, the auditory domain, with this visual domain, it's going to make this lab an innovative place,", "Language has so many different dimensions and this lab has everything."

Previously, Dr. Hirotani has researched how infants learn language, which discovered that children learn better when there is established eye contact. She has a new project within her sights, possibly an experiment that will look at the pauses in speech, as they are an ideal way of comprehending what it is that a speaker is trying to communicate.

For example, a pause in the middle of a sentence makes the listener aware that the speaker has not yet finished talking. Dr. Hirotani says that if they discover how the listener’s brain works when they hear a pause then that information can be used to teach those language cues. What is the application of this? Dr. Hirotani thinks that it could be useful for someone trying to learn English as a second language.

We already know a great deal about what areas of the brain are involved in various types of language tasks and production. Although at first glance the usefulness of this information can seem incomprehensible, the discovery of knowledge can often lead to unexpected applications. No one knew what a laser could possibly be used for when it was first invented. Perhaps the discoveries that are yet to be made at the new centre at Carleton University will lead to advanced medical and language development technologies.