Language is NOT the same as communication, which animals can also do
Language and thought are NOT the same thing
people with global aphasia (complete loss of language), can still perform equally well on other cognitive tasks
Williams syndrome = extreme deterioration of IQ, but retain language to a high degree
Note, global aphasics had language during development
Language is a key way we learn about the world
It seems like language is a way to get ideas from one mind to another. To influence other’s behavior and way of thinking and motives. You need language when you are learning about the world, because it accelerates your rate to acquire that information. After, language is only a tool to communicate with others.
Briefly on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, it seems you can still distinguish pretty well in terms of accuracy between colors you may not have distinct words for (aka perception doesn’t quite change)
some uncertainty about the speed of distinction
and seems to REMEMBER the colors afterward, that is where language/distinct words comes into play
patient literature suggests language is spereate from rest of thought, but on the other hand, neuro-imaging literature suggests that “language regions” are also activated during other cognitive tasks, like arithmetic, etc.
language regions are activated, but not essential
innaproriate use of group analysis
3. the region is just the region of “thinking” of any form, linguistic, numerical, etc.
group analysis can overestimate overlap
you align brains of subjects as best you can anatomically, then average across subjects
group analysis blur data, since in each individual subject, the regions can be close but completely distinct, but on the average, the regions are larger and the averaged regions can overlap
solution: align them functionally, rather than anatomically