AQA Psychology Hemispheric Lateralisation & Split Brain Research

The fact that language is controlled by the left hemisphere in the brain is known as

• Lateralisation

• Aphasia

• Holism

• Plasticity

If an object was shown to the left visual field of one of Sperry's participants, they would report

• that they had seen the object

• that there was nothing there

• that they saw two objects

• that they saw a differeent object

The right hemisphere is often referred to as the

• Synthesiser

• Analyser

• Language centre

• Visualiser

The idea that the two hemispheres of the brain are functionally different is known as

• prefrontal leucotomy

• localisation

• hemispheric bifurcation

• lateralisation

Pick all of the functions that are NOT lateralised

• language

• vision

• motor

• somatosensory

Split brain patients have had their ................... severed in a commissurotomy

• cerebellum

• cerebral cortex

• corpus callosum

• amygdala

Sperry concluded that...

• being right brained makes you creative and being left brained means you're good at maths

• the right and left hemispheres are functionally similar

• the right hemisphere is verbal and the left is emotional

• the left hemisphere is verbal and the right is emotional

Answer explanation

Participants giggled (emotional reaction) if a picture of a naked person was flashed at their left visual field, but couldn't explain why!

Sperry's patients were compared to a neurotypical control group. One problem with this is that...

• the neurotypical group may have struggled to name items presented to them

• the epilepsy suffered by the experimental group may have been a counfounding variable

• neurotypical people are very clever

• epilepsy is difficult to diagnose

Fink used PET scans and found more activity in one side of the brain that the other when 'normal' participants performed different tasks. This...

• supports the theory of lateralisation

• contradicts the theory of lateralisation

• suggests the theory of lateralisation is generalisable to neurotypical people

• suggests localisation occurs in split brain patients

Turk et al. found evidence of the right

hemisphere’s ability to process and produce speech. They

studied J.W, a patient who suffered damage to the left

hemisphere but developed the capacity to speak in the right

hemisphere. This indicates...

• brain functions are localised

• plasticity can lead to the other hemisphere taking over some functions

• J.W had no hope

• the brain cannot adapt