Split brain research

• In an outdated treatment for severe epilepsy, the corpus callosum was severed, meaning the connections between the two hemispheres were prevented. This is known as split brain surgery.
• Roger Sperry conducted experiments on split-brain patients to test whether there was a localisation of function in the hemispheres.
• Sperry (1968) devised a system to study how the 2 hemispheres deal with information from visual and tactile tasks.
• Sperry (1968) supports the idea that certain functions are lateralised in the brain.
• Split brain research is limited to small sample sizes which cannot be generalised.
• Sperry (1968) found that objects presented to the right visual field (RVF) could be described using language, as it is processed in the left hemisphere.
• Objects presented to the left visual field (LVF) could not described using language because the right hemisphere has no language centres.