HM study

Question 1

What is a case study ?

Answer 1

• Case studies investigate special individuals often over a long period of time using multiple methods
• Both qualitative and quantitative
• Highly specific information from the individuals being investigated are collected

Question 2

The case of HM

Answer 2

• He was involved in a bicycle accident which lead to to develop epileptic fits several times a day
• Neurosurgeon removed the hippocampus in his brain to reduce these episodes, this was confirmed using MRI scan
• He was now unable to access old memories from the past 10 years and cannot form new memories
• His procedural memories for HM still remained, he was able to develop a skill by drawing a start while looking into a mirror
• His STM had the same duration as controls
• His intelligence and personality was unchanged according to reports from childhood friends

Question 3

Finding from HM case

Answer 3

• No new memories can be stored in the STM
• Shows us that LTM and STM are separate
• Showed that to encode information from the STM to LTM the hippocampus needs to be used

Question 4

Strength of HM case study

Answer 4

• One strength is that it can be used to study rare behaviour
• Some types of brain damage are specific to a particular individual and therefore their memory experience will be unique and impossible to recreate in lab conditions and due to practical limitation or ethical concerns
• This makes case studies particularly useful for investigating brain damaged due to it giving rich and detailed insight into factors affecting human behaviour

Question 5

Weakness of HM case study

Answer 5

• One weakness is that case studies can be difficult to generalise due to the uniqueness of the individuals used
• Looking at individuals with damage to specific areas of the brain the damage is rarely completely location as other areas can be damaged as well
• This makes it difficult to assume that other even with similar brain damage will have the same impairments