LOF Flashcards
lof main discussion
lof is the theory that certain areas in the brain are resposnsible for certain psychological functions. they can be correlated with thoughts/behaviours. eg hippocampus is associated with memory. there are 4 lobes in the human brain. the frontal lobe associated with reasoning,planning and thinking. the parietal lobe associated with movemnt,orintation and perception. the occipital lobe associated with visual processing and the temporal lobes associated with processing auditiry info,memory and speech. the midbrain is part if the limbic system. part of it is. the hypothalamus involved in emotion. the amydgala involved in memory the hippocampus with spatial info and memory and the thalamus with senory info to other parts of brain. there are tow types of lof strict and relative.
lashley against lof
In 1950 lashley did reerarched opposing the lof theory. he argued cognitive processes are distributed and basic skills localized. he used rats with induced brain damage in cortex trained to run through maze. first he put rats to run in maze with no mistakes to find their food. after he removed different % of their cortex and had them run each time to test memory. he found that their memory depended on the % destroyed and not because of a localised region. and also found that other parts of the b rain can take over to perform functions. showing memory isnt locolized but distributed through brain and cortex.
hm for LOF
IN 1975 milner and scoville investigated the role of damage to the hippocampus on memory. HM suffered from epileptic seizures durinh his childhoood. at 27 he undergoed a radical experimental surgery to remove parts of his hippocampus. the surgery was succesful since his seizures decreased. but he suffered severe amnesia. he couldnt make new memories after surgery(anterograde amnesia) and retrograde amnesia. he couldnt create explicit memories and episodic memories. he did a star tracing task where it showed his procedural memory was intact. the conclusion was that the hippocampus plays a role in explicit memory and not procedural. so the storage of info supporting lof.
critical thinking lof
strength is the ability to precisely map cognitive functions to specific brain regions. essential for diagnosing and treating neurological disorders so treatment can be done to help. contributed to our overall understanding of brain function,researchers can create theories and do research. a limitation is that its not static and can respeacialise due to neuroplasticity. it overlooks the intricate connections between different areas. because the brain works all together so challenging to attribute a single function to a particular area. and Researchers cannot ethically induce brain damage in specific region so its difficult to establish a cause and effect relationship
