Localisation

Question 1

What does the motor area do?

Answer 1

Separated from the auditory area. Found in the frontal lobe. Regulates and coordinates movement. Lesions or damage causes an inability to control voluntary fine motor movements

Question 2

What does the auditory area do?

Answer 2

An area of the temporal lobe which is responsible for processing auditory information and speech. Lesions or damage causes hearing loss, Wernicke’s aphasia or Broca’s aphasia

Question 3

What does the visual area do?

Answer 3

An area in the occipital lobe which is responsible for processing visual information

Question 4

What does the somatosensory area do?

Answer 4

An area in the parietal lobe which processes information associated with the senses. Lesions or damage in this area results in a loss of ability to denote sensitivity to particular bodily areas

Question 5

What does the Wernicke’s area do?

Answer 5

Responsible for speech comprehension. Located in the temporal lobe. Lesions or damage results in Wernicke’s aphasia, characterised by the use of nonsensical words, no awareness of using incorrect words. No issues with pronunciation

Question 6

What does the Broca’s area do?

Answer 6

Responsible for speech production. Located in the frontal lobe. Lesions or damage causes Broca’s aphasia, characterised by difficulty forming complete sentences and understanding sentences, failing to understand the order of words and who they are directed towards

Question 7

Supporting Evidence - Tulving et al

Answer 7

Used PET scans to show that semantic memories were recalled from the left prefrontal cortex. Episodic memories were recalled from the right prefrontal cortex.

Question 8

Supporting Evidence - Peterson et al (1988)

Answer 8

Wernicke’s area activation is required for listening tasks - shows it’s responsible for speech comprehension. Broca’s area activation is required for reading tasks - shows it’s responsible for speech production

Question 9

Supporting Evidence - Phineas Gage

Answer 9

Blasting rod entered prefrontal cortex. Caused irrational decision making and lack of processing of emotion. Shows parts of the brain are responsible for different functions. Used case studies, subjective, lack of control

Question 10

Contradicting Theory - Hollistic View

Answer 10

Each function requires several brain areas to be activated. A rat study found that no specific brain area of lesion was associated with learning how to transverse through a maze. Suggests intelligence is too complex to be restricted to certain areas of the brain. Localisation may only be suitable for simple brain functions