Sperry

Lesson 1

Physiological approach: assumes that mental disorders are caused by physical factors.
. genes
. neuroanatomy
. biochemistry
. nature not nurture

Benefits of Physiological psychology:
-reliability: scientific measurement techniques are used e.g. blood tests, DNA, brain scans, EEG's etc
-low demand characteristics: can't easily fake a brain scan
-Generalisability: basically all the same physically so biological psychology = highly generalisable

The approach studies the biological basis of human behaviour. Focuses on chemical basis of human behaviour e.g. serotonin and depression or hormones. Also considers genetic basis for our behaviour.

Reductionism: known as reductionist because it doesn't consider the impact of environment and social influence on behaviour. No research that shows that behaviour is 100% genetic or biological. There is always a social component.

Sperry 1968

Different hemispheres are thought to have different functions:
-Left hemisphere = language, grammar and speech
-Right hemisphere = spacial awareness, emotion etc
Two sides of the brain communicate with each other in the corpus callosum

Lateralisation of function:
If a person is looking straight ahead everything to the left if the left visual field and everything to the right = right visual field. Everything in a person's left visual field = received to the right of the retina and then via the optic chiasma the info goes to the right hemisphere.

It was a QUASI experiment:
participants had their brains split due to illness after suffering from epilepsy which could not be controlled by medication.
Therefore the variable was naturally occurring, Sperry himself did not split the brains.

Variables:
IV: severed Corpus Callouss
DV: performance on tests

Aim
To study the effects of splitting the corpus callosum in order to help understand how each side of the brain works in normal people.

Lesson 2 

Today we evaluated the study (usefulness, research methods, ecological validity etc)

Lesson 3

We practiced exam q's.

for example
 (a) What was the aim of your chosen study? [2]

(b) Describe the sample in your chosen study and explain why they were used. [6]

(c) Give one advantage and one disadvantage quasi-experiments. [6]

(d) Suggest two changes to your chosen study and outline the implications these changes may have. [8]