Why Is The Brain Trained To Stop You From Swearing

A wide variety of neurological and emotional conditions can affect a person s ability to speak and lead to excessive swearing.

Why is the brain trained to stop you from swearing. Here is a link to 3d brain used in the video. For bad words and taboo terms an introductory class on the linguistics of swearing. Swearing is one activity that engages both sides of your brain the language center in the left brain and the emotional center in your right brain. But because the amygdala is also connected to the memory function part of the brain repetition decreases the activity.

The limbic system which also houses memory emotion and basic behavior. Often cited is a 19th century stroke case in which a patient with brain damage lost the ability to form and understand speech a condition known as aphasia but he was able to swear saying i. By 1999 they found the amygdala which is responsible for processing emotion and memory was highly active when exposed to swear words. The problem with swearing is that it s something that becomes completely ingrained into our psyche almost like our reactions and in some cases victims of brain damage who have completely lost all other language find themselves still able to swear when shocked or aggravated.

Swearing is connected to the limbic system and basal ganglia located in the interior of the brain. The limbic system also seems to govern vocalizations in primates and other animals and some researchers have interpreted some primate vocalizations as swearing. One source of evidence comes from tourette s syndrome ts a neurological condition characterized by involuntary behavioral tics. Many aphasics retain the ability to produce automatic speech which often consists of conversational placeholders like um and er.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging fmri scans of the brain have revealed that swearing tends to affect the lower regions. This may be why people who have trouble speaking. As it turns out there is a body of research on the neurobiology of swearing and it largely supports the idea that the brain treats curse words as special. For example people with various forms of aphasia lose the ability to speak or to pronounce words because of damage or disease in parts of the brain that govern language.