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Localisation of Function - Coggle Diagram
Localisation of Function
Refers to the belief that specific areas of the brain are responsible for different behaviours, cognitive processes or activities.
Contradicts the earlier holistic theory of the brain, where scientists believed that all parts of the brain were involved in behaviours, cognitive processes or activities.
Visual Cortex
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Spans both hemisphere of the brain - right hemispphere received input from the left hand side and left is vice versa
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Auditory Cortex
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Damage may produce hearing loss, the more extensive the damage the more extensive the loss
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Motor Cortex
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both hemispheres have the motor cortex on one side of the brain controlling the muscles on the opposite side of the body
different parts of the motor cortex exert control over different parts of the body and these regions are arranged locally next to one another.
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Brocas Area
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damage is called Broca's aphasia - speech is slow, laborious and lacking in fluency
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Evaluations
(+) Supporting evidence of brain scans: Peterson et al used brain scans to demonstrate how Wernicke's area was active during a listening task and Broca's was active during a reading task
(+) Brain Scans - Empirical: Brain scans provide objective evidence to show that different areas of the brain were active during a listening and reading task.
(+) Case Study of 'Tan': Could only say Tan but could understand speech. Damage was in the base of frontal lobe. Same in 12 other cases and concluded that his area was responsible for speech production.
(+) Case Study of Phineas Gage: Suffered an explosion which hurled a metre-length pole through his left cheek, eye and exiting the top of his head taking out most of frontal lobe. Survived but his personality changes from being calm to someone who was quick-tempered and rude.
(-) Phineas Gage was a case study: We don't know if the situation is unique and we don't know if damage to the frontal lobe would affect other people in the same way. Low Population validity.
(-) Contradictory evidence: Lashley removed areas of the cortex in rats that were learning a maze. No area was proven to be more important than any other in terms of the rat's ability to learn the maze. The process of learning appeared to require every part of the cortex, rather than a specific area.
(-) Lashley used animals: although humans and rats are both mammals, the human brain is much more sophisticated than that of a rat.