How the Brain Separates Our Ability to Talk and Write

According to findings published in the journal Psychological Science, researchers from Johns Hopkins University found that it’s possible to damage the speaking part of the brain but leave the writing portion unaffected — and vice versa — even when dealing with morphemes, the tiniest meaningful components of the language system including suffixes like “er,” “ing” and “ed.” Although the human ability to write evolved from our ability to speak, writing and talking are now such independent systems in the brain that someone who can’t write a grammatically correct sentence may be able to say it aloud flawlessly. During the study, researchers studied five stroke patients with aphasia. Four of them had difficulties writing sentences with proper suffixes, but had few problems speaking the same sentences. One individual had the opposite problem — trouble with speaking but unaffected writing. Researchers showed the individuals pictures and asked them to describe the action. One person would say, “The boy is walking,” but write, “The boy is walked.” Or another would say, “Dave is eating an apple,” and then write, “Dave is eats an apple.” Results of the study show that writing and speaking are supported by different parts of the brain — not just in terms of motor control in the hand and mouth — but in the high-level aspects of word construction. To read more about this study, click here.