1. Characteristics
Enlargement
Including ten billion neurons in the cerebral cortex and ninety billion in interior brain
Being a process (because it is continually engaged with generating electrical currents) rather than an organ (it receives about one billion items of information in a second) (the speed of transforming information from left and right)
Being hard wired (genetically programmed to handle information in predetermined ways)
Being able to speak (like walking) at birth
The right and left hemispheres functions at birth
Males : larger right hemispheres
Females: larger left hemispheres
Brain waves in males and females are different

2. Capabilities
No two human being have identical brains (different experiences)
Operations in brain are of three levels:
1) Primal: enables human to perform needed functions at subconscious level (u can do something all at the same time)
2) emotional: enables human to feel and think
3) rational: process ideas and produces lg
Self awareness and being aware of the surrounding
Interpreting the world based on patterns, rules and relationships
Schemata: being able to organize information in related groupings called schemata
Purposeful information processor (the brain is predisposed to collect information and use it
The basis for all physical acts (even a simple act of taking a step requires a complex circuitry of neurons performing in concert)
EEGs (electroencephalogram) indicate that motor images are generated in the brain in advance of the final form of desired movements
Brain makes lg learning and use possible

3. Only human beings’ brains are capable to generate an infinite variety of lgs
Theorists believe that because the lg children produce is not the reflection of the lg they receive from the environment, children are born with a genetic predisposition to acquire lg termed LAD by Chomsky.
Brain stores the information for future use: human hears sth, the exact words are lost in a second but the content of information remains. If sb hears a message in another lg, the exact original words are forgotten but the message (the content of information) is remembered.
One trillion bits of information can be stored in our memory.
Recall efficiency, selective search (the potential to go directly to the esp item needed)
Ability to use collected knowledge and information processing capacity to solve problems
Solving problems, perceiving the problems and generating problems

4. Two types of mental activity:
Algorithm: following the learned or memorized procedures
2) heuristic process: exploring and evaluating possible lines of thinking
Activities in conscious and subconscious (breathing and digesting) level
Ability to adapt, change, test hypotheses, introspection, make conscious choices, moral judgments, learn cultural values, create new goals

5. Areas and functions
The hemispheres
Two basic principles:
1) two hemispheres are asymmetrical (they are specialized in different types of activities, and they enhance the capacity of each other)
2) lg functions tend to be lateralized (left hemisphere)
Left is larger
Left of females are thicker
Right is thicker in males
The two left and right are wired to control opposite sides of the body
Right has the capacity to comprehend lgs and respond through left
Left: associate thoughts and recognizing objects, fine judgments require for playing music, processing stimuli analytically
Right: recognizing memories , processing stimuli holistically

6. Unique brain
Receptive skills develop more rapidly than productive skills (in natural lg learning situations): Wernicke’s area is well developed in a 4 year old child but Broca’s area is less developed
In multi-linguals, lgs are stored in different areas
L2 areas are lager than L1(because more cortex or neurons needed to process L2 as the lg users are not so much proficient
Brain functions varies with age
Culture differences influence the development of brain functions: in societies with no book-oriented educational systems, children’s spatial and visiual memories are highly developed

7. Location of different functions
Rear brain: interprets incoming stimuli and controls subconscious body functions
Forebrain: is lager in humans, for complex processes involved in thought and problem solving
Luria’s three-function model of brain:
1) to regulate the brain’s various mental states
2) to receive, analyse, organize, and store information ( occipital, temporal, and parietal lobe)
3) (in charge of consciousness): programming, regulating, and verifying activities (anterior portion)

8. Two types of language areas:
sensory: receiving lg and interpreting (centralized in Wernicke’s area in posterior portion) getting meaning from lg
2) motor: producing lg (centralized in Broca’s area in the anterior portion) managing syntax
Left thalamus plays a prime role in speech (important interactions between lg and memory)

9. Mental processes
The brain is not an organ it is a process as generating electrical impulses to process information which begins at birth and continues until death.

10. Types of mental activity
Brain waves: through physical representation of the brain’s electrical charges (EEG) we can study the brain’s activity. Brain waves are divided into 4 frequency ranges.
Levels of mental activity: mental activities take place on three different levels of consciousness:
Conscious level: while thinking, focusing,
Subconscious: a) those control basic body functions, b) those that direct routine and skilled activities, c) those that involve deep thinking
Metacognition: is a conscious process but it is related to the mind’s potential to monitor and direct its own mental process (monitoring one’s ongoing activity)