Localisation of function AO3

• There is support for the localisation of function in the brain from case study evidence of Phineas Gage. Phineas Gage had a pole go through his cheek and out his head taking out most of his left frontal lobe. Although he survived this accident they found his personality had changed from calm to quick tempered and he was ‘no longer Gage’. Change in temperament after the accident suggests that the frontal lobe may be responsible for regulating mood. The evidence from this case study supports the localisation of brain function as it shows a link between the frontal lobe and temperament.
• Strength - supporting evidence - Petersen et al used brain scans to show that Wernicke’s area was active during a listening task & Broca’s area was active during a reading task suggesting these areas of the brain have different functions

  •E.g. Tulving et al (1994) revealed semantic & episodic memories reside in different parts of prefrontal cortex

  •Now exists a number of highly sophisticated & objective methods for measuring activity in the brain providing scientific evidence for localisation of brain function
• weakness - not fixed - explain plasticity and example of functional recovery after trauma
• weakness - Lashley suggested processes involved in learning are holistically distributed - studied on rats and found no area was proven to be more important than any other area - suggests learning s too complex to be localised - COUNTERPOINT is that rats aren't human