Sperry (1968) Background

Question 1

What does neuroanatomy suggest about the brain?

Answer 1

that each part of the brain performs a different role / function

Question 2

What does the spinning dancer test?

Answer 2

which part of your brain is more dominant

Question 3

What does the direction you see the dancer spin in show?

Answer 3

clockwise - right brain
anti-clockwise - left brain

Question 4

What are the characteristics of a left brain person?

Answer 4

• uses logic
• values facts

Question 5

What are the characteristics of a right brain person?

Answer 5

• uses feeling
• values imagination

Question 6

Why is the spinning dancer test not accurate?

Answer 6

complex mental activity requires cooperation from both sides of the brain

Question 7

What was a common belief about the brain during Sperry’s study?

Answer 7

that the different hemispheres of the brain were responsible for different skills, jobs, and roles

Question 8

What was the left hemisphere often believed to be responsible for?

Answer 8

language, reason, maths and science ability

Question 9

What are left hemisphere people said to be good at?

Answer 9

maths and science

Question 10

What was the right hemisphere often believed to be responsible for?

Answer 10

pictures, symbols, emotion, intuition, arts, and music

Question 11

What are right hemisphere people said to be good at?

Answer 11

arts and humanities

Question 12

What is the theory called that believes the right and left hemisphere are responsible for things?

Answer 12

lateralisation of functioning

Question 13

What is a key component of the background to Sperry?

Answer 13

language

Question 14

Who was Broca?

Answer 14

a researcher who carried out post-mortems on patients who had severe speech production problems but understood speech

Question 15

What did Broca find?

Answer 15

that the patients had damage to the lower point of the left frontal lobe

Question 16

What did Broca conclude?

Answer 16

that this part of the brain (lower left frontal lobe) is critical to successful speech production, such as how you move your mouth and tongue

Question 17

Who was Wernicke?

Answer 17

a neurologist and psychiatrist

Question 18

What did Wernicke do?

Answer 18

published work on his patients who had severe defect in speech comprehension, such as decoding what sounds mean in language

Question 19

What did Wernicke find?

Answer 19

identified an area in the left temporal lobe

Question 20

Where are language areas to someone who is right handed?

Answer 20

left hemisphere

Question 21

How were language areas discovered?

Answer 21

people who had a stroke in their left hemisphere
- some demonstrated they knew what to say but could not make their mouths say it
- others demonstrated they can hear speech but cannot understand it (sounds garbled)

Question 22

What is the corpus callosum?

Answer 22

a thick band of nerve fibres which connects the left and right hemisphere

Question 23

What does the corpus callosum do?

Answer 23

allows signals to be transmitted and communicated from one to the other

Question 24

What does the corpus callosum act as?

Answer 24

a bridge between the two hemispheres

Question 25

Why is the corpus callosum important?

Answer 25

because the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body and the left controls the right

Question 26

How is the visual pathway similar to the corpus callosum?

Answer 26

everything perceived by the LVF or RVF is processed in the opposite hemisphere (LVF = right hem & RVF = left hem)

Question 27

What do LVF and RVF stand for?

Answer 27

LVF - left visual field
RVF - right visual field

Question 28

What is the distribution of visual pathways like?

Answer 28

in each of your eyes there is a right and left visual field

Question 29

Where is the retina?

Answer 29

at the back of the eye

Question 30

Where does information pass down that hits the retina?

Answer 30

optic nerve

Question 31

How does information pass visually?

Answer 31

1- light hits retina
2- info passes from retina down optic nerve
3- crosses over at the optic chasm
4- processed by hemisphere