The Brain Has Spoken

Grade:

10

Teacher:

Patricia Garcia

"Riddles are a medium that tests the logical and creative thinking skills of individuals by providing a sequence of words that is both challenging and easy to comprehend. They help us see the innermost depths of the mind of an individual based on their answers and the connections that they make to formulate their response. In this project, we take on the challenge of analyzing the process of language of sophomore students who are in different educational levels. Our project is centered around the studies of psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics, which are two fields of study that go hand in hand with understanding how human beings and even animals process language. Psycholinguistics is the study of the “relationships between linguistic behavior and psychological processes, including the process of language acquisition” (Crystal, 2019). Neurolinguistics is “the branch of linguistics dealing with the relationship between language and the structure and functioning of the brain” (Menn, 2012). With this in mind, we pondered how individuals were able to acquire language, even non-verbal specimen, such as dogs, are able to understand and respond to language. Both of us also happen to know more than one language and our personal relationship with language heightened our interest in this field. We also have participated in advanced classes and have been in advanced programs which brought about the question of whether academics weigh in one’s process of language. Academic factors would supposedly help students who are taking AP classes with the riddles because certain classes, such as AP English Language, would teach students how to break down hard-to-understand texts. This would reassure that there would be a fluid connections between neural networks that connect neurons and glial cells in the brain because learning new information or skills would help establish these connections and strengthen their existing networks. Hence, they would be able to digest the riddles because their process of language would be strong. "

Project presentation

Research paper