Brain & Neuropsychology

• What is lateralisation?


  Different jobs are performed by each half of the brain.
• What does left hemisphere control?

  Speech (Broca's area)

  Logical Thinking

  Controls right hand + right visual field

  Understanding what is heard and written language
• What does the right hemisphere control?

  Recognising faces

  Spatial awareness

  Left hand + Left visual field

  Creativity
• Strengths on theory of lateralisation

  Lots of supporting evidence of gender differences in the brain

  Males better at spatial tasks (parking)- right hemisphere

  Females better at language - left hemisphere

  Good Validity

  Evidence gathered using scientific methods

  Increase Validity and reliability
• Weakness of Lateralisation

  Inconsistent evidence

  Males aren't always better at spatial tasks than females

  Weakens validity

  Evidence is mixed

  has been found that there is no difference between men and women

  Weakens reliability
• what is visual agnosia

  Inability to recognise objects
• what is prosopagnosia

  face blindness