Brain Structures
HM
Maguire
Sperry
Exam Questions
100
Where does the left field of vision go?
To the right hemisphere of the brain.
100
What is the function of hippocampus?
For memory.
100
What was the aim of the study?
To investigate the role of hippocampus in the spatial memory and navigation
100
What is the aim of this case study?
To study the psychological effects of hemispheric disconnection in split brain patients. (To see how the right and left brain works compared to normal humans)
100
Describe one finding from the Maguire's study.
The structure of the brain changes in response to environmental demand.
200
What does the cerebellum control?
Controls coordination and movement.
200
What essential parts of HM's brain were damaged?
The hippocampus, the amygdala
200
Who were the participants of the case study?
16 right-handed male London taxi drivers licensed for more than one and a half years AND 16 right-handed males who were non-taxi drivers.
200
Name two things that the right hemisphere can do in the split brain patient.
1. Human mental capacities 2. Understanding of general categories 3. Simple arithmetic problems 4. Responding to spoken cues 5. Sorting 6. Spatial awareness 7. Emotion
200
Explain what psychologists mean by a natural experiment.
Natural experiment because the researchers are comparing the data of taxi drivers and non-taxi drivers = they have no control of this variable as it is naturally occurring.
300
What is the corpus callosum? What does it do?
It is a connection of nerve fibers that attaches the left and the right hemisphere of the brain, making it bilaterally symmetrical.
300
Identify two things about the hippocampus from HM's case study.
1. Hippocampus is a crucial structure for the transfer of new knowledge from short-term memory to long-term memory. 2. Hippocampus is temporary rather than permanent memory store. 3. Hippocampus does not store new procedural memories
300
Name the type of the experiment, IV, DV.
The method of the case study was natural experiment with independent variable being London Taxi Driver brain and non-taxi driver brain while the dependent variable being structure and volume of the hippocampi.
300
What are the ethical issues of this study?
The split brain procedure was not done for the purpose of the study, so it's not an ethical issue; however one might question the ethics of using a patient for a scientific study and their abilities to give informed consent.
300
Describe one difference between the ability of split-brain patients and 'normal' people to identify objects by touch alone.
- normal brain: emotional and logical perceptions are all at once - detached brain: two separate perceptions
400
Where does the cerebral cortex gather information from? Name 3 complex behaviors of the cerebral cortex.
1. Gathers information from all five senses. 2. Thought, memory and language.
400
What is one limitation of HM's study?
It's not usually possible to use the findings from a single case study to generalize about a larger population.
400
Explain how participants’ brains were scanned using MRI using two methods.
- Voxel-based Morphometry (VBM) = compares the density of different areas of the brain - Pixel counting = counting pixels in photographic ‘slices’ through the hippocampal region of participant’s brains
400
What is the conclusion of Sperry's work? Name two and give an example.
1. Two hemispheres of the brain are not equal. 2. People have two independent strains of conscious awareness each with its own perception of the situation and memories. For example, if hammer is placed on the left hand, and the patient can't see what it is because of the emotional side of their brain, they think "my hand is numb" (this might come with memories). But if it's on the right hand, it goes to the left side of the brain. It thinks "this is a hammer" as it is the logical side of the brain.
400
Outline what occurs when one sees something with both eyes at once, compared to when one sees something from one eye to another. Explain.
Firstly, when one sees something with both eyes, sometimes the perceptions from both eyes 'collide' in your brain and don't work to transmit between the right and left side. However, sometimes one eye will see things more dominant, therefore the emotion attached to what they saw will correspond to the opposite brain lobe. If the image is seen by only one eye, then the opposite brain lobe will be how they perceive the image.
500
What can you assume about the difference between posterior hippocampus and anterior hippocampus from Maguire's study?
By the results obtained from Maguire's case study, the posterior hippocampus deals with already known memories, while the anterior focuses on learning new information.
500
Discuss an ethical issue related to HM's research.
HM was not able to remember all the times that he participated in this research, therefore it could be argued that this was unethical.
500
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the case study? Explain.
Strength:There were many controlled variables Weakness: ecological validity and limited samples.
500
Explain functional lateralization and Sperry's effect on it.
Sperry has made a huge contribution to our understanding of functional lateralization. It is individual differences. Some people have more lateralized brains than others. For example, some people have the language in the right hemisphere. And Sperry noticed that left and right handers and different sexes will affect results. For definition of functional specialization of the brain, with some skills, as language, occurring primarily in the left hemisphere and others, as the perception of visual and spatial relationships, occurring primarily in the right hemisphere.
500
What can be learned about the relationship between the brain and memory from the case study of HM?
HM was able to retain some memories for events that happened long before his surgery. This indicates that the medial temporal region with the hippocampus is not the site of permanent storage in itself. It rather seems to play a role in how memories are organized and then stored elsewhere in the brain.
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