Case studies of brain damaged patients Flashcards
Advantage of case studies of brain damaged patients
Used to investigate rare behaviours that could not be created in research labs and produced rich depth data
Complex interaction of many factors
Disadvantages of case studies of brain damaged patients
-Difficult to generalise -> Chase has unique characteristics (e.g. Phineas Gage)
-Recollection of past is required -> evidence may be unreliable as peoples memories of inaccurate. Retrospective account.
-Researchers may lack objectivity, theoretical biases
-ethical issues -> confidentiality, and anonymity
Who is HM?
Henry Molaison
What was HMS life like before the surgery?
Seizures
Experienced mild epileptic seizures from age 1
Had a major fit on 16th birthday
Unable to work at 27
What was HM’s surgery?
Remove this Hippocampus
What was the effect of the surgery?
Epilepsy appeared to be slightly better, but significantly worse in terms of memory loss
What is retrograde amnesia?
Memory loss from 10 years prior to operation in HM’s case
What is anterograde amnesia?
Lose ability to form new long-term memories
HM could watch the news every night, but not recall major events
What happened to HM’s personality
Intelligence and personality seemed unchanged, according to reports from childhood friends
What happened to HM short-term memory?
Same as control participants only up to 20 seconds
What happened to HM is procedural memory
Intact
Could learn new skills like drawing a star in a mirror
What happened to HM’s Episodic memory
Largely impaired, although learned Suzanne Cortine’s, last name but never recognise her
What happened to HM is semantic memory
Severely affected, but some successes
Able to retrieve celebrities names, so not all of HippoCampus was damaged
What happened to Clive wearing’s memory
Virtual memory, so we can play piano as he already knows this song however he can’t remember what hes played after 30 seconds and repeat himself and continues
