Laterality Flashcards

1
Q

How long ago did Homo erectus exist? How does it differ from Homo habilus?

A

Between 2 million and 800 000 years. It was taller and less robust than homo habilus

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2
Q

What was the difference in relative brain size between homo habilus and homo erectus?

A

Homo erectus had a much larger relative brain size, as the capability of the brain was growing in order to carry out more complex tasks

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3
Q

Give 2 reasons why there were larger groups or communities of homo erectus when compared to its predecessors?

A

Co-operative hunting and infant care

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4
Q

What are the characteristics of homo sapiens?

A

800 000 years ago - present, taller and less robust, final and dramatic increase in brain size

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5
Q

What evidence has been found of Neanderthal dextrality?

A

Asymmetrical dental wear - neanderthals would hold meat between their left hand and teeth, and cut with their right hand - sometimes leaving marks on their teeth, all in the same direction

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6
Q

Which two characteristics have been around since Australopithecus Africanus?

A

Bipedalism e.g. walking upright, and frontal and occipital petalia

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7
Q

At what stage of hominid evolution is the enlarged broca’s area identified?

A

Homo habilus

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8
Q

At what stage of hominid evolution did dextrality emerge?

A

Homo habilus

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9
Q

At what stage of hominid evolution did complex social structures emerge?

A

Homo erectus

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10
Q

What did Corballis propose about gesture?

A
  • That gesture preceded speaking in homo habilus due to a high larynx
  • that primate vocalisations have a limited range and are not volitional
  • humans use gesture
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11
Q

What is the significance of mirror neurons?

A

They could be the key to understanding intention - Area F5 (same area as Broca’s area in humans) activated when monkey reaches for a peanut and when other monkeys or human reaches for a peanut

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12
Q

What are some characteristics of our earliest bipedal ancestors in relation to mirror neurons?

A
  • bilateral mirror neuron centres
  • LH specialisation for vocalisation - not speech, just making simple noises
  • little or no hand preference
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13
Q

What happens to mirror neurons post homo habilus?

A
  • vocalisations become attached to gestures
  • mirror neurons become specialised in LH
  • emergence of broca’s area
  • right hand becomes dominant for tool use and gestures
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14
Q

What is the McGurk effect?

A

When the lip movements of a person are inconsistent with a sound, humans mishear it

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15
Q

How do the sensory/primary areas of our brain develop?

A

They seem to myelinate earlier, and tend not to be lateralised e.g. there’s no difference in basic vision between LH and RH side

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16
Q

How do the association areas of our brain develop?

A

They myelinate later and tend to become lateralised - suggests that lateralisation might develop fairly late

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17
Q

How does the corpus callossum develop over time?

A

A very large increase from infancy to adulthood in relative size. Due to its importance in lateralisation, this supports the argument that lateralisation might develop fairly late

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18
Q

What did Bates discover about the effect of unilateral lesions?

A

For children, there were no asymmetrical effects of lesions depending on RHD or LHD
For adults, LHD associated with a much greater rate of errors when compared to RHD
This suggests that children’s brain are different to adult’s brains in terms of lateralisation

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19
Q

What did Lenneberg propose on the subject of development of laterality?

A

That the brain is not lateralised at birth and lateralisation develops with age

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20
Q

What was discovered about the sizes of left and right temporal planum in adults and infants?

A

The temporal planum was found to be larger on the left than the right for both infants and adults, suggesting that laterality could be innate

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21
Q

What did Hepper (1991) find in relation to foetal thumb sucking?

A

92% suck their right thumb - irrespective of foetal position or gestational age
100% of children who sucked their right thumb went on to be dextral
66% of children who sucked their left thumb went on to be sinistral

22
Q

What did Holowka and Petitto (2002) find in relation to infant mouth openings?

A
  • RH dominant for smiling: expression of emotion
  • LH dominant for babbling: verbal expression
  • results similar to those of adults
23
Q

What did Molfese (1975) find in relation to wave forms for speech and mechanical sounds?

A

Speech - larger AER’s (more processing) in LH, more pronounced for children
Mechanical - larger AER’s (more processing) in RH, more pronounced for children
Shows that functional lateralisation is present in early infancy

24
Q

What is dichotic listening?

A

Assessing which side of the brain people use for language - present separate material simultaneously to both ears and ask subject which sound they heard

25
Q

What does Kimura’s dichotic listening model suggest?

A

Kimura suggested that the dichotic procedure suppressed ipsilateral pathways and accuentated contralateral pathways

26
Q

What is the direct access model? (Kimura)

A

The direct access model suggests that right ear stimuli have direct access to LH language processes. Left ear stimuli goes to RH then must cross over to LH.

27
Q

How did Entus (1977) test for dichotic listening in infants?

A

Entus attempted to elicit a sucking response in response to interesting sounds while infant sucking on an electric dummy

28
Q

Explain habituation and dishabituation

A

If someone gets bored with a stimulus, they have habituated. If a new stimulus is presented and that person shows interest in the new stimulus, they have dishabituated. If the person does not dishabituate, they have not detected the change

29
Q

What did Entus find with his infant habituation study?

A

Dishabituation is stronger for the right ear compared to the left - suggesting that the infant noticed a change more when the sounds heard with the right ear were changed.

30
Q

In the Entus study, how did the results differ for musical stimuli?

A

Dishabituation is stronger for the left ear compared to the right - suggesting that dishabituation is dependent upon stimulus type

31
Q

What are Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area?

A

Broca’s area is the name for the area of the brain concerned with language production
Wernicke’s area is the name for the area of the brain concerned with language comprehension

32
Q

What were the findings of the Wood study on child and adult laterality? (2004)

A
  • children have more variable laterality scores

- no evidence that LH dominance increases either from childhood to adulthood, or within childhood itself

33
Q

What did the Holland study find?

A
  • language lateralisation does increase with age

- the bias toward left hemisphere activation at Broca’s area becomes stronger as age increased

34
Q

Why do children with unilateral lesions recover?

A

Brain plasticity - not lack of lateralisation

35
Q

What are some negative outcomes in differences in laterality?

A

Early death, dyslexia, stuttering, schizophrenia & schizotypy

36
Q

What are some positive outcomes in differences in laterality?

A

Enhanced spatial/artistic ability

Intellectual ability/giftedness

37
Q

What are two possible explanations for the findings of Porac and Coren? (1981)

A

The elimination hypothesis (left handers dying earlier) and modification hypothesis (change in educational methods over time)

38
Q

What did Hughahl (1993) find when investigating the elimination and modification hypotheses?

A

That the percentage of left handers decreased with age, and the number of switchers increased with age, supporting the modification hypothesis

39
Q

What characteristics did Samuel Orton suggest that dyslexics have? What name did he give the condition?

A
  • mirror reversal problems
  • able to mirror write
  • weak or reversed hand preference
    Strephosymbolia (twisted symbols)
40
Q

Explain strephosymbolia

A
  • LH sees word normally, RH sees word mirror reversed
  • Dyslexics have a developmental delay in hemispheric asymmetry
  • Hemispheric suppression causes mirror reversed projection of text to become dominant
41
Q

What is the main problem with Orton’s theory?

A

How the visual system actually works e.g. LH and RB project identical images on slightly different angles

42
Q

What did Hughahl find in his experiment on dyslexic children? (2003)

A

Temporal planum size associated with ear asymmetry for dyslexics, but not controls
No structural or functional asymmetry between groups

43
Q

Define stuttering

A

The repetition (audible or silent) or whole words or parts of words within a sentence

44
Q

What did Orton suggest the cause for stuttering was?

A

He suggested that speech control was bilateral, and the LH dominance was replaced by competition from both hemispheres

45
Q

What did the Foundas (2004) study on stuttering find?

A

For both groups, 64% left TP > right TP

46
Q

What were the effects of delayed auditory feedback in the Foundas study? (2004)

A
  • for the control group, stuttering increased with DAF

- for the stutter group, stuttering decreased with DAF

47
Q

Define schizophrenia

A

A serious mental illness which results in delusional thought patterns, hallucinations and inappropriate affect

48
Q

What are some of the biological characteristics of schizophrenics?

A
  • increased ventricular volume
  • decrease cortical thickness
  • altered patterns of structural asymmetry
49
Q

Explain Crowe’s theory of LH dominance & schizophrenia

A

Crowe suggests that when a person lacks the typical pattern of LH dominance, they can develop schizophrenia

50
Q

What did Dragovic and Hammond (2005) find in relation to handedness and schizophrenia?

A

All three types of atypical hand preference are over-represented in schizophrenic individuals

51
Q

Was there a link found between schizotypy and aytpical hand preference?

A

No difference between dextrals and sinistrals, but mixed handedness was associated with schizotypy

52
Q

What is the logic behind left handers being more likely to be artists/musicians/architects?

A

sinistrality leads to increased right hemisphere function, and since the RH deals with spatial processing, this leads to an increase in spatial ability