Session One (What is Neuropsychology?)

Question 1

What is neuropsychology?

Answer 1

The study of the relationship between the mind and the brain.

Question 2

How can we study the link between the mind and the brain?

Answer 2

• Behavioural experiments; ask a participant to perform a behaviour and measure it’s effect on the brain through FMRI.
• Classical neuropsychology approach (human lesion tests); find patients with specific diseases/lesions and study how these effect their behaviour.

Question 3

What have both types of NP research shown us about memory?

Answer 3

• Maguire et al (1997) = Behavioural study, looked at what happens in a London taxi drivers brain when they try and recall a pathway from A to B. Showed increased activity in the right hippocampus, suggesting a link between that area and memory.
• HM Studies = Human lesson study. HM was an American man who had his right hippocampus removed to try and treat his epilepsy, leading to integrate amnesia. Further supporting the link between RH and memory.

Question 4

What else has the HM studies suggested about memory?

Answer 4

Functional Dissociation.

i.e. that different parts of the brain are responsible for different parts of memory. HM was unable to form new memories, but could learn new skills (he’d even be surprised at how easy he found them as he had no recollection of ever learning them). This suggests that while the RH is important for Declarative Memory, it does not have the same role for Procedural Memory.

Question 5

What are the limitations to human lesion studies such as those involving HM?

Answer 5

• Injury intervenes with the patient, meaning the psychologist has less control over them
• Injury may affect their cognitive function as well
• Patients generally come to be studied after their injury, but to make an accurate claim about the effect of their injury we’d need a pre-injury baseline, which we almost never get.
• Some areas of the brain are more susceptible to damage than others, meaning some areas are far more researched into.
• Inferring normal function from an abnormal example is difficult, as other brain areas may take over and compensate for the deficit.
• Significant anatomical variation between people, with no clear boundary from one brain area to the next.

Question 6

What has cognitive neuropsychology taught us about human attraction?

Answer 6

• Facial beauty appears to be reasonably objective, and based primarily on facial symmetry.
• Body attractiveness appears to vary depending on cultural and historical norms, fashion trends, age….
• However, body attractiveness appears to have a greater degree of subjectivity than previously believed (studies involving different ethnic groups have shown strong agreement on who is and isn’t attractive) (Cunningham 1995, Langlois 2000)

Question 7

What have studies looking into development and attractiveness shown?

Answer 7

• Langlois et al (1987): Infants ages 6-8 months will, when shown a series of photos of people with different levels of attractiveness, spend more time looking at the attractive people.
• Dion (1977): Children as young as 3 prefer to spend time with more attractive peers

Question 8

What have FMRI studies shown about the attractiveness?

Answer 8

• A beautiful face looking at the participant led to dopamine release, causing a pleasurable sensation. The effect was especially pronounced when the face was looking directly at the person.

Question 9

What are Tinbergen’s Four Levels of Explanation?

Answer 9

Four categories for the examination and explanation of any cognition or behaviour. Very useful in neuropsychology.

• Ultimate Level; Effect of cognition/behaviour on reproductive fitness.
• Proximate Level; What are the events preceding a behaviour that deliver it (genes/hormones/social factors/culture/learning/brain anatomy)
• Ontogeny Level; How does the C/B develop over the individual’s life? (essentially looks into their development)
• Phylogeny Level: When in evolutionary history did the capacity evolve? (less useful)