Localisation of function in the brain

• L.O.F

  The theory that different areas of the brain are responsible for specific behaviours.
• Localisations

  
  

  1)Visual area: Part of the occipital lobe that receives and processes visual information.

  
  

  2) Motor area: Part of the frontal lobe, involved in regulating movement.

  
  

  3) Somatosensory area: Part of the parietal lobe, that processes sensory information such as touch.

  
  

  4) Auditory area: Part of the temporal lobe and concerned with the analysis of speech based behaviour.
• Language centres of the brain

  1)Broca's Area: Located in the left frontal lobe, responsible for speech production.

  
  

  2)Wernicker's Area: Located in the left temporal lobe, responsible for language comprehension.
• Their respective functions are indeed localised to to their areas
• AO3


  Limitation) High order functions are not localised and if these areas are damaged, the surrounding regions can take over functions.

  ->Casts doubts on the theory as it shows that functions are not localised to just one region.
• AO3


  Limitation) Women have larger brocas area's and this is ignored (beta bias). This explains why women tend to have ease of language.

  -> Unable to generalise research on l.o.f equally to men and women.
• AO3


  Strength) Patients suffering damages to their Broca's and Wernicker's area suffered with aphasia. (impairment of speech production and language comprehension.)

  -> Provides evidence to support the idea that these functions are localised to their specific areas.
• • Post-mortem examinations found that damage to certain areas of the brain showed consistent symptoms.
  • Patient Tan, who struggled to produce language showed damage to their Broca's area after having a post-mortem examination conducted.
  • Lim) Localisation of brain function may be oversimplified because its been seen that certain functions are influenced by multiple brain areas.
  • e.g. further post-mortem examinations showed that patient Tan had damaged areas outside of brocas area.