Split brain research Flashcards
Split brain research
Research conducted on patients without a corpus callosum. Reasons for not having a CC are:
- Not developing one
- Epilepsy
- An accident
Grenades
Beta bias
Scientific
Can’t generalise the findings
Sperry
Conducted research into split brain research such as the case studies of K.S and W.J
K.S
She didn’t develop a corpus callosum.
Her IQ was above average, which suggests the left and right hemispheres of the brain function individually.
Can’t generalise as people born without a corpus callosum learn to substitute the loss of the CC, and will therefore cope without one differently to people who have theirs removed.
W.J
Brain trauma caused by faulty parachute and war. He developed seizures in the brain and was the first person to have their corpus callosum removed.
He recovered after a month but developed ‘alien hand syndrome’.
This shows that motor skills are controlled by the left side of the brain.
You can’t generalise the findings as not every one developed ‘alien hand syndrome’
Research
Sperry conducted an experiment on 11 patients, presenting them with words in their left and right visual fields. He found that when the word was shown to the left visual field that patients they were unable to verbalise what they saw, but could draw it, however when the word was shown to the right visual field they were able to verbalise what they saw but unable to draw it.
This shows that the right hemisphere is responsible for movement and drawing and the left hemisphere is responsible for writing.
Alien hand syndrome
When your hand does things without you knowing but once you are aware of what its doing, depending on how strong you are, you can stop it.
