brain asymmetries

Question 1

Humans have what type of symmetry?

Answer 1

bilateral symmetry
or clear left-right symmetry

Question 2

What does lateralisation mean?

Answer 2

where cognitive processes are specialised to one side of the brain

Question 3

What are the 2 hemispheres connected by?

Answer 3

corpus callosum
(bundle of fibres)

Question 4

What is the left hemisphere dominate in?

Answer 4

producing speech
speech comprehension

Question 5

What is the right hemisphere dominate in?

Answer 5

spatial perception
word comprehension

Question 6

What is an advantage of hemispheric specialisation?

Answer 6

it avoids duplication
duplication (e.g symmetry) is a waste of neural space

Question 7

Evidence for brain asymmetry: Broca’s patient “Tan”

Answer 7

post mortem evaluation found lesion located at inferior posterior frontal lobe in left hemisphere
became Broca’s area

Question 8

Evidence for brain asymmetry: Wernicke

Answer 8

his patient’e speech was devoid of any meaningful content
found lesion in temporal lobe
became Wernicke’s area

Question 9

Evidence for brain asymmetry: Sperry split brain

Answer 9

corpus callous is severed or disrupted by surgery, normally used for epilepsy
found right visual filed is processed by left hemisphere
left visual field is processed by right hemisphere
(Sperry and Gazzaniga)

Question 10

What is another term for split brain?

Answer 10

callosal syndrome

Question 11

What is Corpus Callosotomy?

Answer 11

operation of cutting bundle of fibres (the corpus callosum)

Question 12

What is our brain reaction to symmetry?

Answer 12

our brains are ‘fined tuned’ to symmetry
but also to some assymmetry

Question 13

What do aesthetic judgements activate?

Answer 13

the prefrontal cortex and the temporopareital

Question 14

What do symmetry judgements activate?

Answer 14

the parietal and premotor areas

Question 15

What is the fusiform gyrus?

Answer 15

a large region in the inferior temporal cortex
argued to be evolved specially for face perception

Question 16

What is prosopagnosia?

Answer 16

the inability to recognise familiar faces and facial expressions

Question 17

What is the “averageness hypothesis”?
Langlois and Roggman, 1990

Answer 17

idea that average shaped faces are more attractive e.g symmetrical faces
indicates good health

Question 18

What is the “right hemisphere hypothesis”?

Answer 18

idea that right hemisphere mainly processes all emotions regardless of affective valence (how can object affects observer)

Question 19

What is the “valence-specific hypothesis”?

Answer 19

idea that left hemisphere processes positive affective responses
right hemisphere processes negative affective responses

Question 20

Are facial expression symmetrical or asymmetrical?

Answer 20

asymmetrical

Question 21

What does handedness mean?

Answer 21

refers to the tendency to use one hand more than the other

Question 22

What hand is dominate in most cultures?

Answer 22

right-handedness is dominate in all cultures
also referred to as dextral

Question 23

What does pseudo neglect mean?

Answer 23

the natural tendency to shift spatial attention to the left

Question 24

Planton et al: the graphemic frontal area

Answer 24

GMFA is said to be involved in writing specific lateralisation
it’s a subpart of the superior premotor cortex, close to Exner’s area

Question 25

What is visual neglect?

Answer 25

an attention disorder
results from strokes and brain injuries

Question 26

What brain region is associated with visual neglect?

Answer 26

the angular gyrus of the parietal lobe

Question 27

Left neglect

Answer 27

result of damage to right hemisphere causing person to have difficulty attending to stimuli on left side

Question 28

Right sided spatial neglect

Answer 28

more rare than left neglect