Exam Questions - Assignment #1

To get you thinking about general principles regarding brain/behavior relationships, I'll frequently be asking you to think about the brain of an alien species called the Tralfamadoreans. These are fascinating beings that do a lot of the same kinds of things we do, but also seem to have brains that might be organized a little differently.

Two scientists are arguing about whether the Tralfamadorean brain is organized in a localized way or an equipotential way. One of them (Scientist A) thinks that the Tralfamadorean brain is localized, and she specifically thinks that there are two separate areas that are right next to each other in the brain: One for doing a complicated task and one for doing a simple task. This is alocalizedtheory of the Tralfamadorean brain. Her colleague thinks that there aren't separate areas at all. Instead, she has adopted anequipotential theory of how the Tralfamadorean brain is functionally arranged.

To settle their argument, they decide to examine a few patients who have brain damage near the part of the brain Scientist A thinks is involved and who may (or may not) have difficulty with simple or complex tasks.

To answer the questions below, I'm asking you to imagine hypothetical patients that could resolve the debate between these scientists. Specifically, you should be imagining patterns of patient data that would help you reject or support either hypothesis. In all cases, "data" refers to the combination of a lesion (where and how big?) and the performance of the patient on task(s) that you describe as either simple or complex.It's likely to be helpful to make a sketch of the Tralfamadorean brain with lesions marked alongside candidate brain areas involved in simple and complex tasks.Also, you do not need to invent simple and complex tasks that you are considering (e.g. "Patient 3 can't play the piano" is not something you need to propose) - instead, you can just tell me whether the patient is capable of performing simple tasks and/or complex tasks.

A) Describe a situation in which two patients with two different lesions might provide data that either scientist could use to support their point of view.

B) Describe how data from a third patient could yield a result that forces Scientist A to reject her hypothesis.

C) Describe how data from a third patient could yield a result that forces Scientist B to reject his hypothesis.