Lateralisation of Function

• Lateralisation of function

  The idea that both hemispheres control opposite sides of the body
• left visual field

  sends information to the right side of the brain
• right visual field

  sends information to the left side of the brain
• corpus callosum

  a fibre that separates the two hemispheres
• split brain patients

  patients with severe epilepsy who had their corpus callosum cut as a last resort to try to manage seizures
• roger sperry: aim

  to study the psychological effects of hemispheric deconnection in split brain patients
• sperry: participants

  1 spilt brain patients who had all undergone hemispheric deconnection to reduce epilepsy
• tasks the ppts in Sperry’s study had to do

  • describe what you see
  • describe what you feel
  • find a similar object by touch
  • drawing task
• findings from Sperry’s study

  the left hemisphere is responsible for verbal and language tasks

  The right hemisphere is responsible for visual motor tasks
• Sperry’s apparatus

  ppts stared at a fixation point on a screen. There were objects behind the screen which had a cover over them to prevent the ppts from seeing the objects. Images popped up on the screen whilst ppts were looking at the fixation point
• Gazzaniga & Smylie

  presented a series of faces to 3 split brain patients and asked if they recognised them. they could only recognise faces presented to the right visual field - showing that facial recognition is located in the right hemisphere