Module 13: Brain Hemisphere Organization & Biology of Consciousness

Question 1

Corpus Callosum

Answer 1

Large band of neural fibers connecting the 2 brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them

Question 2

Split Brain

Answer 2

A condition resulting from surgery that isolates the brain’s hemispheres by cutting the fibers ( Corpus Callosum) connecting them

Question 3

How is information shared?

Answer 3

Data received by either hemisphere are quickly transmitted across the corpus callosum to the other side
People w/ split brain: information sharing does not occur

Question 4

What is the left hemisphere?

Answer 4

The left hemisphere is the “interpreter”

Instantly creates theories to explain our behavior

Question 5

What is the left hemisphere responsible for?

Answer 5

speech/language, logic, mathematical processes, controlling the right side of the body

The left hemisphere contains the Boca’s area and Wernicke’s area responsible for speaking and understanding speech.

Question 6

What is the right hemisphere responsible for?

Answer 6

recognizing patterns, facial recognition, sense of self, spatial relationship, recognizing emotions, visual perception, perceptual tasks
controlling the left side of the body

Question 7

What is the right hemisphere?

Answer 7

Makes inferences, helps modulate our speech (clearer meaning)
Helps orchestrate our sense of self.

Question 8

Consciousness

Answer 8

Our awareness of ourselves and our environment
Helps us act on long term interest (by considering consequences)
Promotes survival (anticipating how we seem to others and helping us read others)

Question 9

True or False: Some patients in vegetative states have brain activity when asked questions

Answer 9

True

Question 10

What happens if a stimulus activates enough brainwide coordinated neural activity?

Answer 10

It crosses a threshold for consciousness

*strong signals in one brain area could trigger activity in another

Question 11

What happens if a stimulus is weak?

Answer 11

Weaker stimulus triggers localized cortex activity

Question 12

What is a sign of conscious awareness?

Answer 12

Reverberating activity - detected through brain scans

Question 13

Blindsight

Answer 13

The ability of people who are cortically blind due to lesions in visual cortex, to respond to visual stimulus they do not consciously see

Question 14

Dual Processing

Answer 14

The principle that information is often simultaneously processed on separate conscious and unconscious tracks

The high road is reflective the low road is intuitive

Question 15

Hollow Face Illusion

Answer 15

Mistakenly perceiving the inside of a mask as a protruding face yet will reach their hand in to flick something off
*what the mind doesn’t know the hand does

Question 16

True or False: Someone blind to object present on the right & normally sighted people with disabled visual cortex can not sense the emotions expressed in faces not consciously perceived.

Answer 16

False: they can

Indicated brain area below the cortex are processing emotion-related information

Question 17

Is consciousness and the decision at the same time?

Answer 17

No, consciousness sometimes comes after the decision to made

Question 18

Which conscious processing is faster?

Answer 18

Unconscious parallel processing is faster than sequential conscious processing

Question 19

How are the eyes wired to the brain?

Answer 19

In each eye, information from the left visual field goes to your right hemisphere, and information from the right half of your visual field goes to your left hemisphere.

Question 20

What is a visual field?

Answer 20

Along the retina of the eye, sense receptors pick up stimuli that is about two inches apart – the right sides of both retinas gather information from the left side of what you are looking at and
vice versa.

Question 21

How did Michael Gazzaniga study the split brains of patients?

Answer 21

• Patients with a severed corpus callosum (“split brain”) were asked to look at a dot in the center of a screen. This created a left and right visual field.
• The word “HEART” was flashed on the screen so that the word “HE” was in the left visual field and the word “ART” appeared in the right visual field.
• Patients were asked to tell Gazzaniga what they had seen. Patients reported seeing the word “ART”.
  This is because the brain’s cross wiring, objects in the right visual field are perceived in the left hemisphere. Though because the brain’s cross-wiring, the left hand, which is controlled by the right hemisphere pointed to the word flashed in the left visual field.

Question 22

Cognitive Neuroscience

Answer 22

Combines the study of brain activity with how we learn, think, remember and perceive. Researchers are exploring and mapping the conscious functions of the cortex.

Question 23

Parallel Processing

Answer 23

Unconscious processing of
many aspects of a problem
simultaneously; generally used to
process well-learned information
or to solve easy problems

Question 24

Sequential Processing

Answer 24

conscious processing or one aspect of a
problem at a time;

generally used
to process new information or to
solve difficult problems