bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort) (03/01/89)
In article <Feb.23.22.02.54.1989.5138@elbereth.rutgers.edu> harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) writes: > Perhaps if people (or objects) habitually went around emitting coherent > glossolalic discourse in foreign languages ("speaking in tongues") that > they claimed (in English) not to understand, or if they emitted nothing > but jargonaphasia that they kept feeling fervently to be full of meaning, > things might look a little different, but that's not the way it is. Most people generate spoken language by way of Wernicke's Area of the left hemisphere. (This is perhaps a bit oversimplified, but bear with me.) The corresponding area in the right hemisphere is also capable of storing and repeating auditory material, but without the benefit of real-time language production. It's more like playing back an audio tape than forming a fresh sentence to express a current idea or thought. The right hemisphere auditory material can include music and lyrics, and other memorized material (even from infancy) that has no meaning as far as the left hemisphere language center is concerned. I know many lyrics that are burned into my brain that I never bothered to listen to for their semantic content. Like Mairsy Doats and Toura Loura Loura, I can utter them on cue with no thought or clue as to their meaning. Could it be that Glossolalia and Frere Jacques are just recitations of previously engrained auditory material that lodged itself in the language-deficient Wernicke's Area of the right hemisphere? --Barry Kort
smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) (03/13/89)
In article <45523@linus.UUCP> bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry Kort) writes: > >I know many lyrics that are burned into my brain that I never bothered >to listen to for their semantic content. Like Mairsy Doats and Toura >Loura Loura, I can utter them on cue with no thought or clue as to >their meaning. > >Could it be that Glossolalia and Frere Jacques are just recitations >of previously engrained auditory material that lodged itself in >the language-deficient Wernicke's Area of the right hemisphere? > Actually, what you have observed in the lyrics is probably just as true of the music itself. I would even go so far as to say that our "appreciation" of music (if that word has not become too devalued by music teachers) arises from our ability to perform similarlity matches on such "previously engrained auditory material." (I have been elaborating on some of this in rec.music.classical.) I recently read a paper in which the author proposed that the mind's ability to listen to music emerged from its ability to process language. I suggested to the author that the process might actually have gone the other way around. Our ancestors were probably doing lots of things with toots and booms before words entered the picture.
bwk@mbunix.mitre.org (Barry W. Kort) (03/13/89)
In article <7767@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar) writes: > I recently read a paper in which the author proposed that the mind's > ability to listen to music emerged from its ability to process language. > I suggested to the author that the process might actually have gone the > other way around. Our ancestors were probably doing lots of things > with toots and booms before words entered the picture. Your theory is supported by the behavior of songbirds and the humpback whale, who learn elaborate songs through auditory mimicry. Parrotry seems more primitive than language. It seems that before one can invest symbols with meaning, one must have some symbols to sling around. --Barry Kort