Localisation

• What are the weaknesses of brain localisation?

  the idea may be oversimplified holding a reductionistic perspective as often a function requires more than one brain region e.g. dronkers analysis of patient tan (who suffered from brocas apahsia) found that there was also damage to regions outside of Broca's area meaning that the research into it may contain confounding variables that are difficult to control.

  
  

  the theory ignores the importance of communication between brain regions. When the connections are damaged, communication between the to is no longer viable which can also impart functions.

  
  

  it ignores individual differences in brain organisation e.g. bavelier showed with brain mating that when different people read they use slightly different brain regions.
• What is the support for brain localisation?

  From case studies on post mortem patients, researchers found that damage with the same areas consistently produced the same symptoms.

  
  

  E.g. Phineas gage 1848 suffered brain injury from an iron rod impaling his head. He physically recovered well however after the accident he showed new hostile behaviours. This supports the idea that psychological damage can be caused from damage to articulate brain regions, supporting localisation.

  
  

  Tulving et al used PET scans to show that semantic memories were recalled from the left prefrontal cortex, whilst episodic memories were recalled from the right prefrontal cortex. Implying that different areas of the brain are responsible for different functions, as predicted by localisation theory. This idea was further supported by Petersen et al (1988) who found that Wernicke's area activation is required for listening tasks, whereas Broca's area is required for reading tasks.
• What is Wernicke's aphasia?

  The inability to understand language.
• What is brocas aphasia?

  The inability to produce language, nouns and verbs are seemingly less effected but predisposition and conjunctions are no longer able to be used.
• What is aphasia?

  When people loss the ability to produce or understand language.
• What is the function of wernickes area?

  enables us to understand language (spoken and written) lateralised to the left hemisphere.
• What is the function of Broca's area?

  Enables us to process language lateralised to the left hemisphere.
• What is the function of the auditory cortex?

  Non contralaterally processes sound in both hemispheres.
• What is the function of the somatosensory cortex?

  Contralaterally processes feelings of touch.
• What is the function of the motor cortex?

  Contralaterally controls body movement.