Psychology Essay To what extent does localisation and plasticity contribute to behaviour?

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                                                                                Rachael Gibson

Psychology Essay – To what extent does localisation and plasticity contribute to behaviour?

The localisation of function in the brain is the specialisation of different areas of the brain for different operations, activities and processes. Brain localisation does contribute to a person’s behaviour in many ways, for there are many different areas and examples. Brain lateralisation is a part of brain localisation, which describes the brain controlling the body contralaterally (controlled by the opposite side of the brain).  There is an upside-down organisation, with the lower body areas represented by the top of the cortex, in general. There is also proportional representation, that is the area of the brain localised to a part of the body, is generally a similar proportion of the brain as the part is to the body.

        

A study related to brain localisation is Sperry’s hemispheric deconnection, where he severed the corpus callosum in order to analyse the functions of it. The deconnection prevented communication between the two hemispheres and when the patients were given tactile and visual stimuli to each of the hemispheres, Sperry recorded the results.

 If visual information was shown to one field, it was remembered only in that field, showing that there is memory storage in each of the hemispheres. If objects were shown in the right visual field, the left hemisphere was able to name it verbally and in writing, which show the left hemisphere has speech comprehension and writing ability. However objects shown to the left eye, items could be identified by pointing, so therefore the right hemisphere also has language comprehension but no ability to speak or write. When two different objects were shown to each visual field, if asked to draw what they saw with the left hand, the patients drew what they saw in the left eye. However if they were asked what was drawn, they would reply with the object seen with the right eye

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When an object was felt by the left hand, it could be recognised by the left hand agin, but not named or recognised with the right hand.

        

This experiment supports the idea that each hemisphere has different functions (brain lateralisation) and the hemispheres are unaware of stimuli represented to the other hemisphere, without the corpus callosum.

This experiment had implications for learning more explanations for brain damage, in order to help patients in future. The experiment was also said to treat the individual epileptics, however the ethics of the experiment may be questioned; the patients did not necessarily volunteer ...

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