Schmolk contemporary study

Question 1

Describe the disadvantage of Schmolk’s contemporary study

Answer 1

• The study isn’t generalisable to the wider public
• Schmolck used a small sample - only 6 patients with brain damage
• Small samples are easily distorted by anomalies and H.M is the anomaly due to his specific brain damage
• It’s unrepresentative of the wider population because H.M suffered from serious epilepsy and the MTL+ group suffered from herpes.

Question 2

Describe the method of Schmolk’s contemporary study

Answer 2

• Similar pictures: shown 6 pictures sharing a theme, asked to point out the one the researcher names which tests for confusion due to semantic similarity
• Category fluency: give as many examples from each theme within 1 minute
• Category sorting: given all 48 pictures and made to sort them
• Definitions: shown a picture and asked to define it by the theme it fits into
• participants were tape-recorded and their responses were transcribed
• 14 people checked each transcript for reliability which gives the results inter-rater reliability.

Question 3

Describe the application of Schmolk’s contemporary study

Answer 3

• The study has a real world-application for studying amnesiac patients with brain injuries
• For example, such research provides a detailed map for neurosurgeons to use when removing a brain tumour so they can avoid areas involved in crucial cognitive functions
• Therefore this research has value beyond the theoretical understanding of semantic memory that it provides

Question 4

Describe the aim of Schmolk’s contemporary study

Answer 4

Aimed to see if there was:

• A link between damage to the temporal cortex of the brain and performance on the tests of semantic memory in people with amnesia
• To see whether any aspects of HM’s performance were unique among the patients tested

Question 5

Describe the results of Schmolk’s contemporary study

Answer 5

1. Similar pictures test: HF patients and control participants made no errors, MTL+ patients showed significant impairments.
2. Categorising test: the controls produced more examples than HF patients and MTL+ patients, HM performed poorly. All participants performed well.
3. Definitions test: MTL+ patients gave definitions of lower quality than controls, they also gave fewer correct statements and more incorrect statements than control and HF patients. HM performed similarly to the MTL+ group.
4. Overall: HF (MTL) patients perfumed better than other groups, for HM and MTL+ patients there was a strong positive correlation between overall performance and the extent of damage to the anterolateral temporal cortex.

Question 6

Describe the conclusion of Schmolk’s contemporary study

Answer 6

• Confirms previous studies of semantic dementia showing a link between impaired semantic memory and damage to the anterolateral temporal cortex
• Also indicates that the structures of the parahippocampal cortex are not involved in semantic memory impairments.
• HM’s performance on most tests was in line with control participants but significantly impaired when he named items from their descriptions, produced examples from categories and provided definitions.
• The researchers concluded that this pattern of results individuated similar damage to the MTL+ group.

Question 7

Describe the advantage of Schmolk’s contemporary study

Answer 7

• The findings of this study support and are supported by research into several other aspects of amnesia and brain injury
• Schmolck identified four additional sources of evidence. Each piece of evidence uses different methodologies, the strengths of each one compensating for the limitations of the others.
• An example is MRI scans which show the temporal lobe activating when participants had to make semantic judgements
• The findings from these sources converge to the same conclusions - that the temporal cortex has a central role in semantic memory
• This is a strength because it increases the validity of the conclusions that the researchers drew from their results