BIOLOGICAL AREA PAST QUESTION

From Sperry’s ‘split brain’ study into the psychological effects of hemisphere deconnection: Outline one way the results may be considered valid. [2017] [2]

• It can be considered valid as participants all had an image flashed to their left or right visual field for 1/10* of a second, therefore they were all tested in the same standardised way increasing internal validity.

• Sperry's study was high in face validity as it was measuring what it claimed to measure. Sperry was clearly measuring whether each hemisphere possesses an independent stream of conscious awareness.

• There is construct validity in the study as he restricted visual information to each visual field and seeing if the participants could name / drawn / select what they had been shown

Casey et al.'s study on the neural correlates of delay gratification, examined behavioural and neural correlates of delay of gratification using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI): Outline how delay of gratification is linked to regions in the brain. [2017] [3]

• The (inferior) frontal gyrus was more active in high delayers. The ventral striatum was more active in low delayers than high delayers. (3)

• Low delayers had diminished recruitment in the inferior frontal gyrus and higher activity in the ventral striatum (3)

Two specific region of the brain must be mentioned (i.e. frontal gyrus, ventral striatum) in relation to a finding to gain top marks

Describe how the biological area is reductionist. Support your answer with evidence from one appropriate core study. [2017] [4]

(Describe) Reductionism is where you break down a behaviour into its constituent parts and analyse the relative contribution that factor makes - reducing the explanation down to its simplest form (1). The biological area does not look at all possible causes or explanations for behaviour and reduces the explanation of human behaviour down to a biological cause without considering all contributing factors. (1)(Evidence) For example Sperry did not have a control group of participants with epilepsy but had not had their corpus collosum severed. The explanation of the participants' inability to name objects shown to their left visual field was reduced down to a biological cause, but without making a comparison it is know whether something else could be contributing to the observed difficulties.

Outline one difference between Blakemore and Cooper’s study on the impact of early visual experience and Maguire’s taxi driver study. [4]

One difference is the sample (1). Blakemore and Cooper's sample were non-human whereas Maguire's were human(1). For example Blakemore studied a sample of kittens to show visual development (1). Maguire however studied a sample of 16 taxi drivers to see if the volume of their hippocampus was different to a control group(1).

From Blakemore and Cooper's study into the impact of early visual experience:

Outline how the visual environment in which the kittens were reared was manipulated. [2018] [2]

The environment was manipulated so that one lot of kittens were reared while exposed only to vertical black and white stripes (1) whereas the other lot were exposed to horizontal black and white lines (1).