Functional specialisation

Question 1

What is the word which describes our tendency to see faces in all kinds of stimuli?

Answer 1

Paredolia

Question 2

Give an example of a study which has been traditionally used to support equipotential vs. modular views of the brain. What is the equipotential view?

Answer 2

Modular: lesions to Broca’s area selectively impair speech production. Equipotential: Flourens (1824): gradually lesioning the cerebellum gradually impaired motor co-ordination i.e. no area was key. The view that functions cannot be assigned to particular brain area. Instead functions emerge from an interacting system

Question 3

The debate between modularity and equipotentiality has flipped back and forth over the decades. In chronological order name the researchers responsible for such changing views

Answer 3

1) Phrenologists (Gall), 2) Flourens, 3) Diagram makers, patient tan (Broca, Brodmann), 3) Behaviourism, mass action and equipotentiality (Lashley), 4) Modularity, patient HM (Fodor, Marr & Chomsky), 5) Connectionism (McClelland)

Question 4

Where is the FFA?

Answer 4

In the ventral stream