Module 13 Notes

Hemispheric Organization: Split Brain Patients

• Left Hemisphere: sensory from the right side of your body, language, motor control of the right side of body,
• Right Hemisphere: sensory from the left side of your body, motor control of the left side of the body, spatial ability, perception, recognition of faces
• Corpus Callosum: connects the left and right brain together, allows each side to communicate with the other
• Short-Term Complications of Split-Brain Operations:
  • left hand unbuttons a shirt while the right-hand buttons it
  • One hand grabs food and one puts it back
• Split Brain Studies:
  • Surgery for epilepsy: cut the corpus callosum
  • Roger Sperry, 1960s: look at the screen and ask what is seen
• Coordinated activity across the brain produces conscious experiences
• Dual processing: process multiple things at once
  • Conscious “high road” of purposeful actions
  • Unconscious “high road” of automatic information and memories
• Blind Sight: damage to the brain that causes damage to one of our two visual tracks (where and perception)
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