Brain Researchers Discover The Evolutionary Traces Of Grammar

Source: Max Planck Society
Posted: February 17, 2006
The bases of the human language faculty are now being investigated by means of highly specialised measurement techniques and with increasing success. Why can we understand complex sentences, while our nearest cousins - apes - only understand individual words?
A comparison of the activation and structural connections of brain areas during the processing of simple or complex linguistic rules. A: The frontal operculum engages in the processing of both rule types (upper image).By contrast, Broca's area becomes active for complex rules only (lower image). B: The frontal operculum is linked to the anterior portion of the temporal lobe via the fasciculus uncinatus. Right: Broca's Area is connected with the posterior portion of the temporal lobe via the fasciculus longitudialis superior. (Image: Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences)
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig have discovered that two areas in the human brain are responsible for different types of language processing requirements. They found that simple language structures are processed in an area that is phylogenetically older, and which apes also possess. Complicated structures, by contrast, activate processes in a comparatively younger area which only exists in a more highly evolved species: humans. These results are fundamental to furthering our understanding of the human language faculty. (PNAS, February 6, 2006)
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