Ways Of Studying The Brain Flashcards
What is Event-Related Potential (ERP)?
ERP uses the same apparatus as EEGs but measures brain activity in response to stimuli introduced by the researcher.
What did Costa, Braun, and Birbaumer (2003) study using ERPs?
They recorded responses to nude pictures of both sexes in young people (ages 19-29).
They found that men were aroused by female nude pictures, while women had neutral feelings towards both pictures.
Suggests method of measuring activity has great accuracy and self reports.
What did Costa and colleagues find regarding ERPs?
They examined ERPs in participants and found a higher response to opposite-sex nude pictures than what was reported by participants.
What is a strength of using ERP?
-ERP is cheap so is widely available to researchers.
-Useful to test reliability of self report answers. Useful one area of research is potentially sensitive and open to social desirability bias.
What is a weakness of ERP?
-There is a high level of expertise needed to use the equipment.
-Only reasonably accurate for activity measured close to the electrode. Means finer detail is missed so method only suitable for certain research questions (not generalisable)
What is a post-mortem?
The brain of a longitudinal participant is examined after death, using scanning methods and X-rays.
What is a famous study related to post-mortem examination?
One famous study is Leborgne (Broca).
What is a strength of post-mortem studies?
They allow for a more detailed examination of the brain than non-invasive techniques.
What understanding can post-mortem studies provide? (Strength)
They provide greater understanding of rare afflictions in people and allow for conclusions about the functions of damaged brain areas, such as Broca’s area related to language.
What is a weakness of post-mortem studies?
It is difficult to obtain brains from individuals with specific details, and there is no consent from the deceased.
-Research on dead person so no brain activity is being measured, fMRI scans may be more clear.
What can affect the results of post-mortem studies?
Some brains may be affected by the cause of death, such as disease, which can lead to no brain activity being measured.
What are EEGs?
Measurement of electrical activity of the brain are recording from electrodes placed on the scalp. One electrode receives electrical impulses from many neurons – identify activity areas of brain on computer screen. Use EEGs to see changes in activity while doing different tasks.
Dement and Kleitman (S-EEG)
P-helps diagnose epilepsy and sleep problems.
E- D+K investigated brain activity change throughout time sleep using EEGs. They focused on dreaming and REM and found REM sleep and EEG patterns were similar to when they were awake.
E- this therefore provides evidence that dreaming occurs through REM stages of sleep.
L- supports use of EEGs when studying the brain bc used successfully to research sleep in relation to brain activity
C- dk not exactly pin point brain activities so they cannot specifically bl help people with certain issues.
EEG weakness
P- poor spatial resolution
E- Bc struggle pin point exact location of electrical activity in brain.
E- this is weakness bc they struggled to be applied to real life as well as helping to exactly diagnose conditions in the brain, meaning they may like accuracy. This means EEG’s cannot always determine where in the brain certain things/conditions take place to researchers cannot completely draw conclusions about functions of specific structures/regions of the brain.
fMRI scans
Detect changes in blood flow as a result of neuro activity. This is when parts of the brain is more active meaning more blood is consumed as it requires more oxygen leading to an increased blood flow in that region. A hacmodynamic response may also take place which is where a 3D image is produced showing which parts of the brain involved is in different mental processes.
