1: “One Brain or Two?”
Who did the original study?
The original study was conducted by Roger W. Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga at the California Institute of Technology.
What are the reasons the researcher carried out the study?
One of the main reasons Sperry and Gazzaniga conducted the study because they wanted to see if the brain, when split into two hemispheres by severing the corpus callosum, could act as separate mental systems and act independently. Another reason was to see if the two brain halves had separate and unique abilities once separated. They wanted to prove whether or not humans could function normally if their brains were split
Identify the theoretical propositions or hypothesis on which the …show more content…
Hock mentions three such studies. The first was created in order to study the visual abilities of the patients. In this study, a picture of an object, words, or parts of a word would only be transmitted to the visual area. The picture would only be see in either the left or right hemisphere. With only the patient’s eyes focussed on a certain point, the picture would be only be sent to the left or right side of the brain. The second study was to understand the split brain’s influence on touch stimulation. The patients could only feel and object or block letters/words. The apparatus created has a screen with an area underneath so the patient could touch the items hidden from their view. This way, a picture of an object could be sent to one side of the brain, while the patient would try to find the object behind the screen with their hands. The final study was aimed to test the patient’s auditory abilities. Since it was impossible to only send sound to one side of the brain, Sperry and Gazzaniga instead limited the response to sound. Several objects were put into a bag, and the patient had to verbally say what it was while holding the object in their left hand. The two hemispheres of the brain are not able to respond to the task the same, making it difficult for the patients to identify what the object …show more content…
With the visual test, Sperry and Gazzaniga found that the right side of the brain was blind. When asked to explain what they saw when lights flashed on the left and right, they claimed to only see the lights on the left. When asked to point at the lights they saw, the patients pointed to all the lights. This means that the patients actually saw the lights, but just could not verbally say they did. To simplify it, for humans to verbally say they saw something, they need to see it with their left hemisphere. In the touch stimulation test, the patients were told to put their hands behind their backs and hold an object, then try to identify it. If the object was in their right hand, it goes to the left hemisphere and the patients were able to name the object. If put into their left hands, the patients could not name or describe it, even if they could when in their other hand. This happens because when it is in their left hand, it goes to the right hemisphere. The right hemisphere does not conduct language, and since it cannot go to the left hemisphere, the patients just can not identify the object. In the visual and touch tests, the patients could identify an object by touch after looking at picture only when showed to their left hemisphere. Overall, the conclusion of the study was that two brains, if hemisphere are split do exist. Each side has a different set of uses and