Biopsych AO3 + Psychologists

Question 1

AO3 for localisation of function

Answer 1

• support from aphasia studies
• opposed by equipotentiality theory, Lashley argued other area could take over skills
• research into Tan is too vague
• overemphasises lateralisation

Question 2

Lateralisation AO3

Answer 2

• lateralisation increases neural processing capacity
• chicken research, can search for food and look out for predators at the same time
• lateralisation changes with age

Question 3

Sperry and Gazzaniga study

Answer 3

Aim - see how lateralisation affects info processing
Method - split brain patients are told to focus on dot in centre of screen, and images will show on left or right side of screen, ppts asked to respond with left hand (RH) or right hand (LH) or verbally (LH)
Findings - images shown to right hemisphere would be correctly reported, left hemisphere no report
Conclusion - LH is for speech & language, RH is for visual-spatial processing

Question 4

Evaluation of Sperry & Gazzaniga

Answer 4

• split brain patients are so rare, their research depends on a handful of cases
• based on an unhealthy brain, cannot be generalised