Tongue and Brain

Hi y'all, it's been a while. Frankly, I am less productive blogging this month due to the fact that I am in the middle of exam week. In spite of continuing studying for my English exam tomorrow, I decided to blog something really interesting relating about the listening practice I just did a while ago.

Basically, my English exam is divided into 3 parts, just like an IELTS test, writing, reading and listening. We have done the speaking test from the presentations we did months back. I'm obviously worried about my reading and listening test. Because whenever I try the sample papers at school, I always get lots of mistakes. Hence, I decided to open my Blackboard (an online student account where all materials are uploaded there) for more English past papers.

So far, I have practiced 2 listening papers. There were 2 very interesting articles. First was about the 4 strategies bringing the world closer through communication in languages entitled : Gift of Tongues. Secondly was something about neuroscience, how the brain works and how it works when someone's brain is damaged. I prefer the second lecture because it's somehow appealing despite the fact that the first 4 to 5 or maybe 10 minutes were a bit boring and I was trying my best not to drift away from listening to the lecture. Concentration is essential to attain satisfying grades, you know, especially in this case.

The lecturer, I presume, is a doctor, she taught in Oxford University, if I was not mistaken. She gave very distinct examples about some accidents. I'll list out some very complicating biology vocabularies and might even supply some definitions, so bare with me on this one. Prosopagnosia (Face Blindness), Fusiform gyrus, Capgras Syndrome, Phantom Limbs, Synesthesia.

Each hemisphere of the brain was divided into 4 lobes

1. Frontal Lobe- controls behavior
2. Parietal Lobe- creates 3D representation of the external world and even our body
3. Temporal Lobe- controls hearing and emotion
4. Occipital Lobe- controls vision

Prosopagnosis (Face Blindness)-  The case in which a person is not blind but unable to recognize a person's specific face.

Capgras Syndrome- a syndrome in which occurs when a person doesn't recognize his acquaintance.

Synesthesia- A case in which one's senses are mixed up, one would always see a color of a number in his mind although it is printed in black and white. He also might experience the same thing whenever he hears a certain tone. 1 in 200 people has this. It suns in the family.

Phantom Limbs- the case in which the sensory input is hungry to receive signals from the amputated limbs, it the sensor misinterprets the signals from other parts of the body, eg: the face. For instance, when someone touched an amputated person's face, this person would feel that the person touching him was in fact touching his amputated limb rather than his face.

During the listening, I just found that vision is not a simple process. First the object we see is distorted upside down in the retina then to the optic lens then to the brain to be analyzed into 30 images before we can identify what we see.

Btw, so sorry for the not so clear definitions, because I am starting to lose my boost in blogging. So gottago.. and fingers crossed for tomorrow's test! 3 more to go and I'm FREE as a bird.