Week 2 Reading

Question 1

Describe the disassociations discovered via the patient who could not identify how many legs animals had/

Answer 1

Patient couldn’t identify how many legs animals had
Wasn’t due to animal specific loss as he couldn’t tell how many legs a table had
Wasn’t leg specific as he could tell if it had a tail or not
Wasn’t knowledge of parts as he couldn’t tell if they were round or colour
He could tell if Australian or not
He could tell if it made a sound or not
He could tell if you ate it, and living area - i.e. non-perceptual knowledge intact - thus only perceptual knowledge regarding the objects
Auditory and perceptual knowledge remained intact - thus, only visual perceptive knowledge affected

Question 2

What are the four assumptions of modularity?

Answer 2

1. Functional Modality - cog systems are comprised of modules.
2. Anatomical Modality - functional architecture of modules are reflected by corresponding neural architecture - if false, then brain damage would affect broad domains
3. Uniformity of Functional architecture across people - if everyone differs, then no assumptions will hold!
4. Subtractivity - Deficits subtract a value from an intact system - never adds to it