Contemporary Study

Question 1

Describe Contemporary study Schmolck (2002)

Answer 1

Title of research- Semantic Knowledge (i.e Memory) in patients with brain lesions
Aim- To investigate whether specific brain damage (Temporal lobe) has effect on semantic knowledge.
Whether HM was unique based on the effect of his brain damage on his semantic knowledge
Sample-
Sample- 14 ppts, Opportunity sample to gather 6 ppts with brain damage.3 suffered encephalitis Medial temporal lobe + Anterolateral temporal cortex (MTL+)2 had hippocampal damage only (HF) Last ppt was HM, Hippocampal damage Like HF, medial temporal lobe damage. And damage to lateral temporal lobe
8 controls (No brain damage) matched on age (74), gender (male), education (12.4 years), however one female was used
Procedure-All did 9 semantic tests battery, 7 pre-existing (Valid) tests, 2 made by Schmolk himself- 48 Line drawings, 24 objects and 24 animals.
Examples: Defining Images ,Identifying Images ,.Pointing out pictures, Categorising, Descriptions
Pyramids and Palms- Matching pictures
Additional tests of semantic memory- HM did test 10,
Findings-
Ppts were ranked in terms of overall performance, ranks negatively correlated with extent of brain damage suffered More brain damage= worse performance
HF (Hippocampal only) made almost no additional error, test performance was comparable to control group. HF group performed similar to controls
HM made many grammatical errors and performed slightly worse than control group, researchers suggested brain damage wasn’t cause of grammar errors, could be explained by absence of education due to being hospitalised by epilepsy and/or socio-economic background.
MTL+ performed significantly worse than control group on definition, categorising, naming, sequencing, yes/no test
Conclusions
Anterolateral temporal cortex damage affects semantic knowledge (Type of long-term memory)
HM wasn’t unique in effect of brain damage on semantic knowledge

Question 2

Evaluate contemporary study Schmolck (2002)

Answer 2

Sample- Schmolk used small sample (Only 3 patients) with MTL/Hippocampus damage and 3 with wider temporal cortex damage, easily distorted by anomalies.
Method 1- Standardised procedures that could be replicated by other researchers, higher reliability, Schmolk used 14 raters to check ppt scores and they agreed , gives inter-rater reliability.
Inter-rater reliability- Idea that if two raters scored the scale using same rules, they’d get exact same result
Method 2- Lowered ecological validity, artificial task in the form of naming/categorising drawings.
Application- Concluded LTM was controlled by Hippocampus and LTM was controlled by temporal cortex. Study has high application value as it helps understand effects of brain damage on memory.
Conclusion- To conclude, study has high reliability due to standardised procedures, and has good application value to medical procedures, however, has low ecological validity due to artificial task and even lower generalisability due to limited sample which can be easily affected by individual differences.