Biological Area - Sperry / Blakemore and cooper

Question 1

Sperry - What was the background to the study?

Answer 1

Sperry was a neuropsychologist who conducted a number of studies on individuals with split brains, he then did research with monkeys with split brains and discovered you could teach one hemisphere something without the other.

Question 2

Sperry - what was the aim

Answer 2

To investigate the difference between the two hemispheres.

Question 3

Sperry - Describe the sample

Answer 3

11 individuals with split brains due to surgery from epilepsy.

Question 4

Sperry - Name a weakness of the sample

Answer 4

Only 11 individuals all had had epilepsy and major surgery.

Question 5

Sperry - What control where put in place

Answer 5

Same images
Same objects
length of time images up for (1/10thS)

Question 6

Sperry - what was the procedure

Answer 6

.Sperry used a tachistoscope to present images
.They had one eye covered while the image was shown on one side for 0.1 seconds
.Participants were then tested on the stimuli.

Question 7

Sperry - Why where the images only shown for 0.1 seconds

Answer 7

All visual stimuli was presented for only 0.1 seconds. This was another control as it is too quick for eye movements to cause visual information to enter both visual fields.

Question 8

Sperry - what conclusion was drawn

Answer 8

Supported the idea of two seperate conscious hemispheres connected by the corpus callosum which combines them.