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Brain Region Discovered That Only Processes Spoken, Not Written Words

posted by mrpg on Monday April 01 2019, @11:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the I'm-speaking-not-writing dept.

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Brain region discovered that only processes spoken, not written words: Study of rare dementia shows selective attack on areas of brain

Even though these patients could hear and speak perfectly fine, a disease had crept into a portion of their brain that kept them from processing auditory words while still allowing them to process visual ones. Patients in the study had primary progressive aphasia (PPA), a rare type of dementia that destroys language and currently has no treatment.

The study, published March 21 in the journal Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, allowed the scientists to identify a previously little-studied area in the left brain that seems specialized to process auditory words.

If a patient in the study saw the word "hippopotamus" written on a piece of paper, they could identify a hippopotamus in flashcards. But when that patient heard someone say "hippopotamus," they could not point to the picture of the animal.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 02 2019, @03:30AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 02 2019, @03:30AM (#823414)

    That's a common problem. The only real way around it is to work on reading faster. If you read fast enough, that should stop happening.

    I'll deliberately make sounds of the words of I need to read carefully though. If I just want broad strokes, I'll read fast enough that I can't generate sounds. It's unfortunate that do many people think it's impossible to read without making the sounds mentally.