Localisation of brain function

Question 1

What does localisation mean?

Answer 1

The theory that specific areas of the brain are associated with particular physical and psychological functions

Question 2

What hemisphere of the brain controls which side of the body?

Answer 2

Left controls right and right controls left

Question 3

What does lateralisation mean?

Answer 3

The dominance of one hemisphere of the brain for particular physical and psychological functions

Question 4

Which side of the brain is responsible for language?

Answer 4

Left

Question 5

What is broca’s area responsible for?

Answer 5

Converting thought into speech

Question 6

What is wernicke׳s area responsible for?

Answer 6

Understanding other people’s speech and producing speech which makes sense

Question 7

What are the two types of aphasia and which area affects them?

Answer 7

Fluent- able to produce words but don’t make sense together- Wernicke
Non fluent- unable to put words together- Broca

Question 8

What connects the two hemispheres?

Answer 8

Corpus callosum

Question 9

What are the four lobes in the brain?

Answer 9

Frontal
Occipital
Parietal
Temporal

Question 10

What is the occipital love responsible for?

Answer 10

Vision

Question 11

What is the frontal lobe for?

Answer 11

Planning, decision making, abstract thought, Broca’s area, motor area

Question 12

What is the parietal lobe for?

Answer 12

Somatosensory area (processes sensory information from sense organs)

Question 13

What is the temporal lobe for?

Answer 13

Auditory area, wernickes area

Question 14

Brain scan evidence

Answer 14

Peterson (1988) used brain scans to show that Wernickes area was used in listening task and Broca’s in reading task
Tulving showed that the semantic and episodic memories are in different parts of the prefrontal cortex

Question 15

Case study evidence

Answer 15

Phineas Gage- Metal rod passed through his left eye and out the top of his brain, knocked over but didn’t lose consciousness. Recovered after a few months, but went from kind and reserved to boisterous and rude

Question 16

Localisation limitation (Lashley)

Answer 16

Evidence that some functions are not localised in only one area- Lashley (1929) removed different parts of the cortex in rats that had learnt to run a maze, found that no one area more important than others.

Question 17

Localisation limitation (Plasticity)

Answer 17

the brain can adapt to transfer function from one part of the brain to another. This suggests generalisation more than localisation.