Hemispheric Lateralisation And Split-Brain Research Flashcards
What is hemispheric lateralisation?
The idea that each hemisphere of the brain is mainly responsible for certain behaviours, processes and activities
What does the right side of the brain control?
Drawing, spatial tasks and facial recognition
What does the left side of the brain control?
Music, analytical tasks, language and viewing objects in the right field
Who was the researcher that looked into split brain patients?
Sperry (1968)
When may two hemispheres be separated from each other?
In rare cases of extreme epilepsy
How long was the stimuli flashed onto the screen for during Sperry’s research?
1/10 of a second
Why is it important that the stimuli was only on the screen for 1/10th of a second?
It meant that only one hemisphere would be able to process it, maintaining the internal validity of the experiment.
What happened when patients had to describe what word they saw if it was exposed to their right visual field?
The word was processed by the left hemisphere, and the patients said the word
What happened when patients had to describe what word they saw if it had been exposed to their left visual field?
The word was processed by the right hemisphere, and the patients would write the word using their left hand
Why would patients have written the word with their left hand after being shown it in their left visual field?
Because the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body
Why wouldn’t patients have been able to give a verbal description of the word after it had been shown to their left visual field?
Because the right hemisphere contains no language centres
Which hemisphere had the best ability to match a list of faces to a given stimulus?
The right hemisphere
What would happen when two words were presented at the same time, each to one of the visual fields?
Patient would say the word presented to right visual field.
Patient would write the word presented to the left visual field.
Why wouldn’t patients be able to recognise what object was in their right hand?
Because it would’ve been processed by the left hemisphere, which does not contain any visuo-spatial centres
Why is generalisability an issue with Sperry’s research?
Split brain patients are rare and only 11 participants took part, which means we cannot generalise the findings to the whole population.
