AO3 hemispheric lateralisation Flashcards
(13 cards)
RTC hemispheric lateralisation of the brain comes from…
A case study on patient EB
What did EB suffer with?
Brain damage that resulted in the removal of her left hemisphere and therefore his language centres
What did patient EB manage to do despite having her left hemisphere removed?
She was able to regain some language ability which would not be possible if the brain was completely lateralised. This demonstrates that language must be in more areas than just the left hemisphere
How can the case study of EB be criticised?
It lacks population validity and it may not be appropriate to generalise the findings of lateralisation of function to the typical population, as these are unique case studies where brain damage may have affected the way in which the brain functions and some individuals may be able to process language in the right hemisphere
What has some research suggested about hemispheric lateralisation?
Some research has suggested that language is not solely lateralised to the left hemisphere but is found in the dominant cerebral hemisphere which is found to be opposite of dominant handedness.
RTS hemispheric lateralisation was conducted by…
Sperry
What did Sperry do?
Used split brain patients with a severed corpus callosum
What did Sperry find?
Sperry found that when ppts were showed an image of an object to their right visual field, the patient could name it verbally but when presented to the left visual field they could not name it verbally but could identify the object through pointing
Why does Sperry’s research support hemispheric lateralisation?
It supports that the brain is lateralised and that the hemispheres are responsible for different functions such as the left being responsible for language abilities
How can Sperry’s research be discussed?
One limitation is that there may be individual differences between the ppts, in relation to how lateralised their brain was
What varied greatly between the ppts in Sperry’s research?
The degree to which their corpus callosum was severed for each ppts varied greatly with some having greater disconnection between the two hemispheres than others
What does the varying severig in corpus callosum mean?
There may still be some ability to communicate between the two hemispheres
Why is the individual differences between Sperry’s ppts a weakness?
It is a weakness because th research may not be measuring the true effects of lateralisation because of this confounding variable
