Localisation-EVAL Flashcards
one strength of localisation is that there;s research evidence to support neurological functions being localised.
Petersen et al,. used brain scans to demonstrate how WERNICKES area was active during a listening task and BROCAS area during a reading task.
This shows that these areas of the brain have DIFFERENT functions which are LOCALISED. As wernickes was needed to understand the language that was being listened to, whereas Brochas was needed in the PRODUCTION of language for the READING task.
One strength of this Petersen et al research is that they used brain scans. This is a strength because…
Brain scans are a SCIENTIFIC objective measure as the results CANT be changed by the researcher e.g. researcher bias or the participant e.g. D.C’s such as social desirability where they would want to be seen’act in a certain way.
Therefore, this means that the results of this study are NOT affected by those extraneous variables and therefore have HIGH i.v. meaning localisation can be trusted.
another strength is that there is reserach suppport for the localisation of function from CASE STUDIES where patients have suffered from nuerological damage.
Phineas GAGE was injured with a pole through his left cheek, taking a portion of his brain and left frontal lobe. He had personality change.
This shows that damage to an area of the brain can lead to SPECIFIC changes in our personality.
Therefore this supports localisation of function as it suggests that ASPECTS of out personality could be localised to our frontal lobe.
HOWEVER, one issue with case studies are that they are IDIOGRAPHIC. These results may NOT generalise to others, lacking POP. validity. Just because Gage’s personality was localised in this way doesn’t mean that this localisation of function would be true for EVERYONE.
There is more research support that suggests that brains are not always localised, and may be holistic instead.
LASHLEY removed areas of the cortex in RATS that were learning a maze, and no area was proven to be MORE important than any other in terms of the rats ability to learn the maze.
This suggests that their brains are NOT Necessarily localised in terms of LEARNING the maze. Therefore this would support the HOLISTIC theory over localisation.
HOWEVER this was conducted on RATS which may be a problem as there’s the issue of ANIMAL EXTRAP, where we may not be able to generalise these results from animals to humans. Therefore it could be that RATS brains do not show localisation of function and show holism, but human brains may not necessarily show holism in the same way.
