Variations In Cerebral Asymmetry Flashcards
What is Confabulation?
its the spontaneous production of false memories and memories for events that never occurred
how do split brain patients confabulate?
may elaborate and detail events that never occurs
may show bizarre events in their recall like alien spaceship
- they do this because they have a low level of awareness so they make up stuff
- they are not lying deliberately
What is Aphasia and Apraxia? What area of the brain causes this when damaged?
aphasia: speech problems
apraxia: articulation of words and movement problems
- when they occur, almost always a consequence of left hemisphere damage
What is hemineglect and prosopagnosia? What area of the brain causes this when damaged?
hemineglect: patient is unaware of portion of space
Pospopagnosia: inability to recognize faces
- when they occur, almost always follows RIGHT hemisphere damage
If two patients A.B and L.P both had damage to the posterior part of their left temporal lobe and only one of them showed difficulties in reading, speaking and remembering words and the other showed difficulty recognizing faces, and drawing pictures.. what could account for the differences?
A.B is a right handed male and L.P is a left handed female
their handedness can account for these differences
What was the results of WADA technique and aphasia studies in the percentage of left handers that are left lateralized speech, right lateralized speech and bilateral speech?
70% (majority) of left handers are left lateralized speech, 15% are right lateralized, and another 15% is bilaterally lateralized
What are the three environmental theories of hand preference?
- Utility: holding baby with left hand closer to the heart, and then doing other things with right hand
- Reinforcement: everyone is right handed so thats how majority of people learn how to do things
- Accidents (like genetics): genetic bias towards right handedness and how left handedness develops through a cerebral deficit
What is the finger tapping experiment?
using a device to tap with left finger and then right finger and seeing which finger has the highest number of taps per 30-60 seconds
what do the results of the finger tapping experiment show?
that dominant hand is faster than non-dominant hand by 5%
What do artwork show about handedness throughout history?
about 90% of artwork show right handed actions and 10% show left handed
How are motor skills represented in men vs. women?
men are superior at throwing and intercepting (catching) objects
women are better at fine motor tasks
both are present at 3 years of age
How are spatial analysis represented in men vs. women?
men are superior at mental rotation and spatial navigation
women are superior at spatial memory like landmark changes
How is mathematical aptitude resented in men vs. women?
men are superior at mathematical reasoning
women are superior at computation (3+5-4)..etc
not really much difference tho
How is perception differing in men vs. women?
more women are sensitive to all sensory stimuli except vision and they have lower thresholds
men are superior at drawing mechanical objects
What are 5 established asymmetries found in males vs. females?
- males have larger left planum temporale compared to their right planum temporale
- males have larger asymmetry in their sylvan fissure (longer horizontal section in the left hemisphere compared to their right)
- planum parietale is about twice as large in males right side vs. their left side
- females have more inter hemispheric connections and a larger splenium and anterior commissure
- females more likely to show atypical fingerprint asymmetry
