Biopsychology(localisation of function) Flashcards
What is localisation of function?
The theory is that different areas of the brain are responsible for different behaviours, processes or activities
What and where is the motor cortex?
A region of the frontal lobe involved in regulating movement. Different parts of the motor cortex regulate different movements of the body. These regions are arranged logically.
What and where is the somatosensory?
An area of the parietal lobe that processes sensory information such as touch that are in the body. It uses sensory information from the skin in order to produce its own sensations of pain, pressure and temperature. Which it then localises to specific regions of the body.
What and where is the visual center.
A part of the occipital lobe that receives and processes visual information, visual processing begins at the retina, the back of the eye, where light enters photoreceptors. The visual cortex contains several different areas which process different types of visual input such as colour, shape or movement.
What and where is the auditory center?
Located in the temporal lobe and concerned with the analysis of speech-based information, Begins in the cochlea in the inner ear, where these sound waves pick up information which is transferred into nerve impulses. Stops at brain stem then thalamus for decoding when it finally reaches the auditory cortex it recognises auditory information and makes the appropriate response.
What and where is Broca’s area?
An area of the frontal lobe of the brain in the left hemisphere responsible for speech production.
What and where is Werneckie’s area?
An area of the temporal lobe (encircling the auditory cortex) in the left hemisphere responsibly for language comprehension/understanding.
There are individual differences in language areas - limitation
Pattern of what trigger language centers through language activities can vary person to person, Bavelier explored this when reading where they observed activity in the lobes, Other studies have found that when men are compared to women they have much larger broca and werneckie areas. This anatomical difference has suggested that superior language skills are most likely found in females.
Support for language centers from aphasia studies - strength
There is evidence for the different functions of Broca’s area and Werneckie’s areas in language production. These come from different types of aphasia (language disorder) in Broca and Werneckie. Excessive aphasia (Broca aphasia) is an impaired ability to produce language whereas receptive aphasia (Werneckie aphasia) is an impaired language ability to understand language, this form of aphasia is usually from a stoke in Werneckie’s area. Therefore this demonstrates the idea that there are different language centers that are localised for different functions of language.
