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hemispheric lateralisation and split brain research - Coggle Diagram
hemispheric lateralisation and split brain research
hemispheric lateralisation
theory that two halves of the brain are functionally different and certain mental processes and behaviours are mainly controlled by one hemisphere rather than the other
for example the ability to produce and comprehend language seems to be lateralised to the left hemishphere
split brain research
sperry
research involved a group of 11 who had undergone commissurotomy, which is where the corpus callosum has been cut to separate the two hemispheres to control seizures
this allowed sperry to investigate the extent to which each hemisphere is specialised and which brain functions are lateralised
presented info to a patients left visual field (processed by right hemisphere) and to their right visual field (processed by left hemisphere)
if visual material was presented to the right visual field alone, the participnt was able to decribe it in speech and point to it or drraw it with their right hand
because info is processed in the left hemisphere which is responsible fr language and controls the right hand
if the visual material was presented to the left visual field, the ppt would not say anything because the info was processed by the right hem which is not responsible for language
if they were asked to point to or draw the object using there left hand they were able to do it
conclusions from split brain research
language is lateralised to the left hemisphere
drawing and face recognition is lateralised to the right hemisphere
split brain research evaluation
influential research +
sperrys research led to a substantialn body of research being published about lateralisation of functions in the brain
highly influential in developing neuroscientists understanding about how the brain worked
strengths of the methodology +
the procedures were standardised and well controlled - sperrys method allowed him to ensure info was only being recieved by one hemisphere. this means he could be confident in the conclusions he made
issues with generalisation -
split brain patients are an unusual sample of people. there were only 11 patients that took part in sperrys orininal research, all of whom had a history of epileptic fits.
researchers urged caution when accepting the conclusions as the sample used is unlikely to be completely representitive of the general population