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AQA A Level Psychology Biopsychology Essay Plans
7 detailed Biopsychology essay plans which include both AO1 and AO3 for all topics needed to achieve top marks.
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Discuss what research has shown about localisation of function in the brainAO1:
Localisation – specific areas of the brain associated with specific functions
2 hemispheres
o Left hemisphere responsible for logic, reasoning and language tasks
o Right hemisphere responsible for auditory awareness and spatial perception
Cerebral cortex is the outer layer and includes grey matter which are bunches of neurons and is divided into 4:
o Frontal lobe
Contains the motor cortex which controls all voluntary movement
o Parietal lobe
Contains somatosensory area which is where sensory information from the skin is received
o Occipital lobe
Contains visual cortex where vision processed and each eye sends information to the opposite hemisphere
o Temporal lobe
Contains auditory cortex and analyses speech based information
Language processing in the left hemisphere by 2 main areas:
o Broca’s area
Left frontal lobe
Damage to this area causes slow speech, lack of fluency but doesn’t affect comprehension
o Wernicke’s area
Left temporal lobe
Damage to comprehension and produce nonsense responses
AO3:
A strength is damage to areas of the brain have been linked to mental disorders
Evidence from neurosurgery Cingulotomy involves isolating a region called the cingulate gyrus which has been implicated in OCD
(strength) Darin Dougherty et al (2002) reported on 44 people with OCD who had undergone a cingulotomy
It was found 30% met criteria for successful response to surgery and 14% for partial response
The success of the procedure suggests behaviours associated with mental disorders may be localised
A strength is evidence from brain scans that supports the idea that any everyday brain functions are localised
Evidence from brain scans Steven Petersen (1988) used brain scans to demonstrate how Wernicke’s area was active during a listening task and Broca’s area
(strength) was active during a reading task
This confirms localised areas for everyday behaviours
Therefore objective methods for measuring brain activity provided scientific evidence that brain functions are localised
Lashley removed cortex in rats learning route of a maze
Counterpoint No area was found to be more important than any other area in terms of the rats ability to learn the route
(limitation) The process required every part of the cortex
This suggests other cognitive process such as learning are not localised but distributed holistically
, Discuss research on hemispheric lateralisation
AO1:
Hemispheric lateralisation – the idea that the 2 halves of the brain are functionally different
Left and right hemispheres
o Left hemisphere is language area containing Broca’s (left frontal) and Wernicke’s area (left temporal)
Language is lateralised since it is only controlled by one hemisphere
o Right hemisphere is the synthesiser
Controls the left side of the body
Some functions are not lateralised such as somatosensory areas since they appear in both hemispheres or motor areas which are contralateral
Vision is contralateral and ipsilateral
o Both eyes receive light from the LVF and RVF
o However the LVF of both eyes are connected to the RH and vice versa which allows us to compare the different perspectives from each eye and aids depth
perception
o Similar for auditory input to the auditory area and the disparity from the 2 inputs helps us locate the source of sounds
Sperry’s research
o Studied how 2 hemispheres functions when they can’t communicate
o 11 participants had image projected to RVF (processed by LH) and some for other side
o If object shown to RVF participants were able to describe what they saw e.g. if shown to LVF then participants could pick out the object but were unable to say
what they saw
o This shows certain functions are lateralised in the brain and supports LH is dominant in language and RH is dominant in creativity such as drawing etc.
AO3:
A strength is evidence that in the connected brain the two hemispheres also process information differently
Lateralisation in the connected brain Gereon Fink (1996) used PET scans to see which areas of the brain are more active during visual processing
(strength) RH was more active when looking at general pictures e.g. a forest however LH was more active when looking at individual
pictures e.g. Individual tree
Therefore in terms of visual processing, hemispheric lateralisation is a feature of the connected brain as well as split brain
A limitation is the idea of the LH as the analyser and the RH as the synthesiser
One brain Javed Nielsen (2013) analysed brain scans from over 1000 people aged between 7-29 and found people used certain
(limitation) hemispheres for specific tasks however there was no evidence that there is a dominant side of the brain
Therefore this suggests the idea that an individual can be either left or right brained is inaccurate
A strength is support from recent split brain research
Research support Michael Gazzinga split brain patients perform better than people with connected brains in certain tasks e.g. faster at identifying
(strength) the odd one out in a group of similar objects than connected brain participants
This supports Sperry’s findings that the left and right hemispheres are distinct
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