Split brain AO3

• strength

  •Highly specialised and standardised procedures

  •Sperry’s method required all pp’s to do the same standardised task - to stare at a fixation point before an image flashed for one tenth of a second – this meant split brain patients would not have time to move their eye across the image to spread information to both sides of the visual field

  •Allowed Sperry to vary aspects of the basic procedure ensuring only one hemisphere was receiving information at a time

  •High internal validity
• weakness

  •Only 11 people took part who all had suffered with epileptic seizures

  •This may have caused unique changes in the brain which could have influenced the findings

  •Also some pp’s had experienced more disconnection between hemispheres than others

  •Sperry’s control group had no history of epilepsy – not an appropriate control
• weakness

  •Modern neuroscientists say that the distinction between both hemispheres is less clear cut

  •In a normal brain the two hemispheres are in constant communication when performing everyday tasks and many of the behaviours typically associated with one hemisphere can be effectively performed by the other if a situation requires

  •E.g. plasticity and functional recovery after trauma
• one strength is Sperry's research.