The neurological correlates associated with nonverbal cognition do not appear to have been definitively identified in the professional literature, and there is disagreement about whether they can be. However, there is evidence that they come down to processes that take place in the brain.
Certain biological mechanisms have been identified that have been connected to communication, both verbal and nonverbal. The brain is implicated in emotions as cognitive exercises in two ways. First, the amygdala of the brain integrates the discrete neural systems that govern overt response, spontaneous response, and hormonal secretions connected to emotional reaction to a given stimulus. Different parts or more exactly the hierarchy of nuclei of the amygdala govern responses to different categories of stimuli (olfactory, visual, etc.). Second, the orbitofrontal cortex of the brain performs an analytical or judgmental function to make a meaning, or translate the experience of myriad stimuli into emotional response (Carlson, 1999).
The way specific parts of the brain are implicated in specific features of emotion is made clear by the fact that where lesions have been observed in particular parts of the brain, the behavioral organism has been distinguished by a failure or disappearance of responses that make ordinary sense (Carlson, 1999). One study of a particular family exhibiting multiple cognitive and linguistic deficits cited multigenerational "verbal apraxia" and poorly developed "nonlinguistic oral praxis" for many family members (Watkins, Gadian, & Vargha-Khadem, 1999). PET scans revealed brain-activation patterns showing that affected family members' brains did not activate part of the medial wall of the left hemisphere associated with sensorimotor and language skills. There was also unusual formation of gray matter and neuron activation around Broca's area of the brain, which is associated with speech cognition and processing. The author...