Localisation of Function

• Localisation of function

  Certain areas of the brain have specific roles and functions
• motor cortex

  responsible for voluntary movements
• somatosensory cortex

  detects sensory information from different parts of the body such as tough, pressure and pain
• visual cortex

  processes visual information
• auditory centres

  concerned with hearing
• occipital lobe

  controls vision
• parital lobe 


  controls movement
• frontal lobe

  controls language
• temporal lobe

  controls hearing
• Broca’s area

  Responsible for producing speech
• Wernicke’s area

  responsible for understanding language
• case study of Tan

  couldn’t write or speak but understood spoken language - he had Broca’s aphasia
• Broca’s aphasia

  impaired ability to produce speech
• wernicke’s aphasia

  impaired ability to understand language
• arguments supporting localisation of function

  case study evidence - Dronkers et al did an MRI scan on Tan‘s brain and found a lesion in his Broca’s area
• problem with Tan’s case study

  idiographic so can’t be generalised to wider population
• arguments against localisation of function

  equipotentiality - Lashley trained 50 rats to run a maze then damaged different parts of their brains, it was found that their ability to run the maze was affected by how much of their brain was damaged rather than the area that was damaged

  reductionism - localisation of function is biologically reductionist, it tries to reduce behaviour and experiences to one brain region