This line of thought came to me the other day and I thought it would be interesting to discuss. The cerebellum is shown in the figure below. From Wikipedia: The cerebellum (Latin for "little brain") is a region of the brain that plays an important role in motor control. It may also be involved in some cognitive functions such as attention and language, and in regulating fear and pleasure responses;[1] its movement-related functions are the most solidly established. The cerebellum does not initiate movement, but it contributes to coordination, precision, and accurate timing. It receives input from sensory systems of the spinal cord and from other parts of the brain, and integrates these inputs to fine tune motor activity.[2] Cerebellar damage does not cause paralysis, but instead produces disorders in fine movement, equilibrium, posture, and motor learning.[2] Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The cerebellum, by contributing to coordination, precision and timing, within in movement and within speech is the part of the brain behind so many expressions of culture. It is not so much what goes on in the cerebral matter, but rather how this processed in the cerebellum, that defines the movement of the expert dancer or the fine tuned voice of the singer or orator. We can all lip synch from the cerebral but without the cerebellum cooperating, the sound comes out like noise. The cerebellum allows the coordination for video game champions and is needed for all jobs that use hand eye coordination and timing. It connection to fear and pleasure makes peer pressure connected to cerebellum activity. If the cerebellum was less tuned, so much of culture expression, would be uncoordinated like were apes doing it. This would create the impression the cerebral had a disorder even with the mind clear. The actor in his to her speech and action is very dependent on the cerebellum for timing and polish. What we often contribute to cultural smarts; con artist, actually comes from a cerebellum processing high level output. This is part of the social illusion of an extroverted culture.
I am not aware of any significant involvement of the cerebellum with language (production or understanding) Please give a reference suggesting that. The main areas are Broca´s and Wernicke´s areas. Broca's area is mainly concerned with production of speech and is efficiently located just anterior to the motor cortex that controls the mussels used in speech - quite far from the cerebellum. Wernicke's area is sort of at the junction of the temporal lobe with main part of the brain. It is concerned mainly with meaning of words. Both are on one side of the brain, usually the left. If Broca's is intact, the person will (or may) speak fluently (rapidly) sometimes with reasonable well structured sentences, but nonsense - the meaning is not clear if Wernicke's area is damaged. For example an example of a well formed, but meaningless sentence, he might say: The green dog flew into a spoon. Note green is correctly used as an adjective; the subject precedes the verb, and the final preposition phase is well constructed. That is, Broca's areas not only moves the speech mussels correctly but has access to the lexicon to place words in good grammatical structure (when all the damage is in Wernicke's area only.) However more often there is no proper sentence structure, or even clear indication where it begins and ends. - Just a string of "word salad" as it is often called. Wernicke's area also has access to the lexicon, as it must for comprehension of what you hear. Even with badly damaged Broca's area, a person with damage only there can manually followed complex, lengthy instructions; but his speech will be slow and labored if present. Wellwisher's: "The cerebellum (Latin for "little brain") is a region of the brain that plays an important role in motor control." is correct but misleading. The motor control of the cerebellum is mainly, if not only, of motor patterns that have become automated. Like walking or riding a bicycle - things that were originally difficulty to do and required your conscious effort and attention. This is not only more efficient (no bother to consciousness) but also faster. For example, I doubt one could consciously hit a baseball, but the swing is automated, with minor variation based on current* sensory input. * That is the accepted POV, but not mine. I think that would be impossible for a fast pitch due to neural processing delays. I think sensory information is "projected ahead" very slightly so one has a "real time" understanding of their sensed environment. I call this a Real Time Simulation of the environment. The RTS is one of, if not the main task, of the parietal brain. To learn more about the RTS see: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=905778&postcount=66 where I explain and justify my RTS view of perception with focus on showing genuine free will is not necessarily inconsistent with the natural laws that control the firing of every nerve in your body. Then see: http://www.sciforums.com/threads/wh...e-will-an-illusion.104623/page-5#post-2644660 and posts 84,86 & 94 where I clarify my POV more.
I agree that the cerebellum does not processes language. Rather the cerebellum adds the final polish to the muscular movements, needed to generate sound. As an analogy, one can have the best audio amplifier; cerebral processing of language. If this top grade amp is connected to a cheap set of $10 speakers (poor cerebellum) the amplifier seems much less perfect or even cheap. Alternately, a moderate level amp (cerebral) with excellent speakers (cerebellum) can make the amp sound better than it actually is. The cerebellum is connected to fine tuning and timing of the mechanical output devices of the body; sound and movement quality. The cerebellum is analogous to cheap or expensive speakers, which can make a good amplifier seem poor or a poor amplifier seem better. With many people judging by surface, they hear/see the cerebellum and not the cerebral. The sports critic can visualize precise movements in their mind's eye. However, without cerebellum support, they may not be able to duplicate this cerebral vision. Their attempt at an output will not do justice to what is inside their cerebral. The player who has a high level cerebellum processor can learn and then duplicate the exact movement, to create the superficial impression of the critic's cerebral. A beautiful women with perfect body language for flirtation, needs the cerebellum for fine tuning her movement. If the cerebellum was replaced by cheap speakers (lessor cerebellum) the magic is not the same. She starts to look like she came off the farm without that flirtation polish. The angle I was thinking of, for this discussion, is since people often look at surfaces of things (quality of the output), what is often attributed to the cerebral, is in reality, cerebellum speaker quality. The nerd, who is smart, may look awkward in dance or song, because his output devices lack cerebellum tuning. This may hide the cerebral processing inside. In terms of social structure, in an entertainment culture, cerebellum output often rules.
I ASKED FOR A LINK. not more nonsense. If what you state were true, then victims of sever Parkinson diseases would have no or badly slurred speech. A great actor, Robert Williams, recently committed suicide as he had advanced Parkinson's disease. - He spoke quite well the day before he died.
The cerebellum plays an important role in motor control. The cerebellum does not initiate movement, but it contributes to coordination, precision, and accurate timing. It may also be involved in some cognitive functions such as attention and language, and in regulating fear and pleasure responses. The cerebellum does not initiate movement or speech. Cerebral areas of the brain do that. The DVD player and the amplifier is analogous to the cerebral processing and initiation. The cerebellum is more like the output filtering device, since it fine tunes the motor control and timing of the (mechanical) output devices. It adds polish to the output by helping to coordinate precision and timing in the mechanical parts. Language cones from the cerebral but the voice needs muscular control and the cerebellum for precision and timing. If we have a $10,000 computer that can output super high definition audio and 5K video, but it is connected it to a cheap $200 TV with an small internal speaker, you can't see and hear the high cerebral quality of the computer, because the TV can't emulate the input to the level of its initiation. A cheap DVD player and a $1000 TV may look and sound better. The connection to attention, fear and pleasure is based on our unconscious/conscious reactions to the mechanical output; beauty or ugly from the good or cheap speaker analogy. If you see a person dancing with amazing motion and timing, it attracts attention and gives pleasure. On the other hand, if someone is butchering a song, out of tune, trying to sing, this is something you would like to avoid and might get you upset; defensiveness. One needs to control the nerve grating noise and fidgeting to be polite. The entire point is the cerebellum is an important part of cultural reality, since it defines the quality of mechanical output, which, in turn, has an impact on attention, fear and pleasure. With rap music, the lyrics are annoying to me, but the cerebellum timing and precision is very high and has an appeal to me. The cerebellum precision is the attraction and not the second rate poems. A good confidence man or woman may not need all the logic and the facts, if they can make up of rthis poor amplifier, with expert timing and precision; good speakers can make the amp sound much better than it is. This reaction is quite ancient and may be even natural to animals. You can't read minds, especially of stranger, but you can see and hear their output devices. This mechanical output is often the default with strangers; quick judgments. This explains why nerds don't get the babes as often as the cool kids. Kool is based on movement, actions and voice inflections all of which can lead or intimidate. Part of this line of reasoning was to figure out how to explain why so many people fall for political scams. The data does not often check out so it was not the cerebral matter that was being assessed. It was the cerebellum. This may be the way to reach mass appeal with even cerebral gibberish not mattering too much. The push to be a star is not about character (cerebral) but being a character (cerebellum). There is a second little brain between the upper (head) and lower (groin).
The cerebellum is where we build predictive behavioral models of people, animals, and society. Autism spectrum disorder will mean expectations ('models') of behavior in social situations will be deficient, and although the cause is still under investigation, many papers have been written about this. When you think about it, this is about the most complex and nuanced thing a human mind is capable of doing, and also is vital for functioning in a society in ways more vital to human superiority than reptilian things like fight or flight, or similar functions of the amygdala. It's also the reason that most teenagers are very bad at social judgements, whether they will admit it or not. More people than you would expect actually never get a handle on managing social relationships. There are just too many ways these kinds of models can go wrong, and it isn't even a unilateral process to begin with.
The angle I was looking at was based on the cerebellum being that part of the brain used for coordination and timing. It makes movement smooth and polished. The various forms of celebrity from fluent speaking, to movement such as dancing and sports, to singing and playing, music, and even acting etc., depends on coordination and timing of various muscular groups. It is not the words that matter, but how they are said and stressed. The cerebellum is what will put the final polish that will separate song from noise. The cerebellum has a connection to many extroverted aspects of social dynamics, since it has a connection to moving muscles and matter. The nerds are often picked on, because their keen cerebral processing is not as easy to see as their lack of cerebellum coordination and timing. Being a character is more important in western culture than developing character. The cerebellum polish is more important than cerebral polish, because character does not need the cerebellum and will not be seen as easily by most people as a good dancer. It is possible this lower common denominator is important to culture because it is more visible and can be grasped by the most people. This approach can lead to deception since coordination and timing alone does not mean the cerebral matter below the surface is also polished. One can create a cerebral image with the proper cerebellum mask. The TV doctor can make people think he knows as much as a real doctor using cerebellum timing.
