Case studies of brain damaged patients

• What is a case study?

  • Research carried out on an individual or small group of people (idiograpahic approach)
  • Rich, in-depth, detailed data from individuals about their behaviour and their feelings.
• How are case studies used in cognitive psych?

  Used to help establish the link between damage to specific areas of the brain, and the resulting effects on cognitive processes such as memory and language.
• How does it collect qualitative data?

  • Interviews
  • Observations
  • Emotions and feelings
  • Open ended questions
  • Recorded in a transcript
• How does it collect quantitative data?

  • Closed questions
  • Data analysed statistically
  • Displayed in graphs and tables
  • Brain scans
  • IQ and memory tests
• Case studies

  • Longitudinal approach- over long period of time e.g. years, allows researchers to record changes in behaviour over time.
  • Take a multi-method approach
  • Can collect info from other people e.g. family and friends.
• Strength

  • Can study cases that could not be produced in a research lab
  • Avoids ethical issues of invasive investigation
• Weakness

  • Only study the patient after the damage has occurred
  • No cause and effect statements so reduces validity of findings about the link between damage to specific areas of the brain.
• Strength

  • Collects large amounts of data using several techniques e.g. observations, interviews, experiments allows triangulation.
  • If data matches between methods it increases concurrent validity which increases credibility of findings.
• Strength

  • Produce rich, in-depth data due to the complex interaction of many factors
  • Means info that might be overlooked is studied, so holistic approach.
• Weakness

  • Often use the recollection of past events from the case or their family and friends.
  • Evidence may be unreliable because people's memories are inaccurate.
• Weakness

  • Only deal with 1 person or small group of people so we can never be sure whether the conclusions drawn can apply elsewhere
  • Results not generalisable because we can never know whether the case, we have investigated is representative of the wider body of similar instances.