Sperry (1968)

biological classic yr12 study

what was the aim of Sperry’s study?

to investigate what functions of the brain are lateralised

what are split brain patients?

people who have had a corpus collostomy, which normally happens to control frequent and severe epileptic seizures

what does lateralisation mean?

when the 2 halves of the brain have different functions and certain processes

what are the main roles of the left hemisphere?

• language

• formulas

• problem solving

what are the main roles of the right hemisphere?

• face recognition

• drawing ability

• spatial tasks

what was the IV and the DV?

• it was a quasi experiment

• IV - split brain or not

• DV - ability to perform in tasks

what was the sample?

11 split brain patients

sum up the procedure

participants undertook a variety of both visual (word/picture shown) and tactile (touching) tasks

explain the key findings

• visual - left visual field couldn’t describe what they saw , right visual field could easily describe

• tactile - object shown to LVF meant it can easily be found by left hand (seen by right hemisphere), unable to find with right hand because controlled by left hemisphere

• drawing - picture is shown, drawing better from left hand because of right hemisphere

identify some key conclusions

• the hemispheres of the brain processes information differently

• the hemispheres have different functions, supporting lateralisation

• split brain patients seem to have 2 separate streams of consciousness