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Summary AQA biopsychology notes
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This document contains condensed notes for the biopsychology topic in AQA psychology - it contains clear AO1 points and a range of AO3 (evaluation) points.
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TOPIC AO1 AO3Localisation Localisation: specific areas of the cerebral cortex associated with particular o Early supporting evidence – Phineas Gage – damage to frontal lobe which
cognitive functions (first discovered by scientists such as Broca and Wernicke in may be associated with personality as his personality changed from calm to
the 19th century) quick tempered – personality may be localised in the frontal lobe
Before this, scientists supported the holistic theory of the brain - all - Counterpoint – idiographic – cannot make generalisations from one
parts involved in processing thoughts and actions person – small sample size – may not be applicable to a wider
The main part of the brain (cerebrum) is divided into two hemispheres, population – not much information about how personality was before
and some physical/psychological functions are controlled by a particular so cannot make comparisons about how he was before
hemisphere - lateralisation o Supporting evidence from neurosurgery – strength of localisation theory is
4 lobes that damage to areas of linked to mental disorders – cingulotomy involves
o Frontal (speech, learning, voluntary movement) has motor isolating region called cingulate gyrus which has been implicated in OCD
cortex Dougherty et al reported on 44 people with OCD who had undergone a
o Parietal (touch, heat, pressure (sensory information from the cingulotomy – post surgical follow up after 32 weeks about 30% had met the
skin) is represented) has somatosensory cortex criteria for successful response to the surgery and 14% for partial response –
o Temporal (auditory info and memory) has auditory cortex – suggests that behaviours associated with serious mental disorders may be
analyses speech based information localised
o Occipital (visual info) has visual cortex – each eye sends o Evidence from brain scans supports that many everyday brain functions are
information from the right visual field to the left visual cortex localised – Petersen et al – used brain scans to demonstrate how Wernicke’s
Language centres of the brain: area was active during a listening task & Broca’s area was active during a
o Broca's area is found in the left frontal lobe, and is responsible reading task – objective methods for measuring brain activity have provided
for speech production – damage – Broca’s aphasia which is sound scientific evidence that many brain functions are localised & Buckner
characterised by slow laborious speech which lacks in fluency – & Peterson – semantic & episodic memories reside in different parts of the
they have difficulty with prepositions and conjunctions prefrontal cortex
o Wernicke's area is found in the left temporal lobe, and is - Counterpoint – refuting evidence Lashley removed areas of the cortex
responsible for language comprehension – Wernicke’s aphasia (between 10% and 50%) in rats that were learning a route through a
– produce nonsense words as part of their speech maze – no area was proven to be more important than any other area in
terms of rats ability to learn the route – process of learning seemed to
require every part of cortex rather than being confined to a particular
area – higher cognitive processes such as learning are not localised but
distributed in a more holistic way in the brain – may be biologically
reductionist & cannot account for all behaviours
Hemisphere Lateralisation: dominance of one hemisphere for particular physical and o Supporting evidence from split brain studies (described in split brain
lateralisation psychological functions section)
o Even in the connected brain, evidence still shows lateralisation: Fink et al
Corpus callosum is a bundle of nerve fibres which joins the two used PET scans and found that, in a visual processing task, regions of the
hemispheres of the brain, and through which the hemispheres participants' RH were much more active when attending to global elements
communicate of an image and regions of the LH when focussing on finer details. This
Commissurotomy is the division of the two hemispheres by surgery, shows that hemispheric lateralisation is a feature of the connected brain as
which has occasionally been done to improve epilepsy well as the split brain.
The visual field is in the left and right occipital lobe o not complete - Turk et al. (2002) discovered a patient who suffered damage
Two main language centres are in the left hemisphere - Broca's in the to the left hemisphere but developed the capacity to speak in the right
left frontal lobe and Wernicke's in the left temporal lobe - language hemisphere, eventually leading to the ability to speak about the information
, is lateralised. The right hemisphere is said to contribute emotional presented to either side of the brain. This suggests that perhaps
context to what is being said. The LH is called the 'analyser' and the RH lateralisation is not fixed and that the brain can adapt following damage to
the 'synthesiser' certain areas.
Many functions are not lateralised, e.g. motor & somatosensory areas o Another factor to consider in respect to hemispheric lateralisation is the
appear in both hemispheres degree to which the brain is lateralised. There is research by Shaywitz 1995
The motor area of the brain is cross-wired (COntraLATERAL WIRIING), for example to support the idea that in males the brain may be more
meaning the RH controls movement on the left side and the LH controls lateralised for language than in females.
movement on the right o Idiographic nature of much supporting evidence, usually relying on split-
VISION (CONTRALATERAL & IPSILATERAL) brain research (findings are focused on the individual and cannot be
o Each eye receives light from the left visual field and the right generalised to the population), it is hard to apply the results to everyone
visual field. The LVF of both eyes is connected to the right o The extent of lateralisation decreases with age - Szaflarki et al found
hemisphere, and the RVFs to the left hemisphere - aids depth language was increasingly lateralised to the left hemisphere up to the age of
perception 25, but then decreased with every decade of life. Explanations of
o Similar arrangement with auditory information lateralisation don’t consider individual differences like age in extent of
lateralisation
Spilt brain Sperry's split brain experiment: A quasi-experiment with 11 split-brain o Issues with generalising this research - all participants are split-brained and,
research participants whos' corpus callosums were split to treat epilepsy in this case, all epileptic, so findings of their behaviour may not accurately
Number of different task procedures used, e.g. depict brain activities of those who are not split-brained – not generalisable
o Support + similar findings from more recent split-brain research: Gazzaniga
o Patients have to pick an item from a bag and name it without shows split-brain participants perform better than controls on certain tasks,
looking at it. Using the right hand (linked to LH), they were able e.g. faster at identifying the odd one out in an array of similar objects. This
to name the object, using the left hand (linked to RH) they supports Sperry's earlier findings that the left and right brain are distinct,
could not. Shows language processing occurs in the left and suggests the left hemisphere's cognitive abilities are diluted by the right
hemisphere hemisphere in connected brains
o Words/pictures were projected to either hemisphere and the o Scientific nature of research - Sperry's methodology was highly specialised
patient had to feel for a related object hidden amongst others. and standardised , so findings are reliable. Typically an image/words would
When 'key' was presented on the left and 'case' on the right, flash for 1/10 of a second so there was no time for the eyes to be moved,
they could only report seeing 'case' - shows left visual field is meaning image was only observed in one visual field and so visual
processed in the right hemisphere where language processing information presented to one hemisphere at a time – strengthens sperry’s
ability is limited. conclusions about lateralisation
o Projecting a nude image to the right hemisphere resulted in o Extraneous variables – level of splitting, drug therapy, lack of control group
blushing and giggling, suggesting the right hemisphere is without epilepsy
responsible for emotional processing
Observations show how certain functions are lateralised in the brain,
and support the view that the left hemisphere is verbal and the right is
emotional
Nervous Specialised network of cells in the human body - our primary internal Works with nervous system to control vital functions – slower, but
system & communication system widespread + powerful
endocrine Based on electrical and chemical signals Glands produce and secrete hormones, which elicit powerful responses.
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