Author: rol5213

By far, my favorite topic that we have covered in class has to be Pavlov and his experiment on dogs. In the famous experiments that Pavlov conducted with his dogs, he found that objects or events could trigger a conditioned response. The experiments began with Pavlov demonstrating how the presence of a bowl of dog food (stimulus) would trigger an unconditioned response (salivation). He noticed that the dogs started to associate his lab assistant with food, creating a learned and conditioned response. This was an important scientific discovery. Pavlov then designed an experiment using a bell as a neutral stimulus. As he gave food to the dogs, he rang the bell. Then, after repeating this procedure, he tried ringing the bell without providing food to the dogs. On its own, an increase in salivation occurred. The result of the experiment was a new conditioned response in the dogs.

One day senior year, I was just having a normal day, same old routine. Go to classes, eat lunch, then drive home. Towards the end of the school day, I finally made it to my psychology class, 5 minutes late of course. As soon as I walked in I knew my teacher was up to something. The room was rearranged, 80’s music was playing, and there was a huge tub of lemonade mix sitting on the podium in the front of the room. I wanted to ask what the heck is going on here but he is crazy so I just waited till he started to explain what we were doing so I just went with it. My teacher, Mr. Ludlow, moseyed up to the front of the room and said ” Alright children, we are going to test Pavlov’s famous experiment today.” He decided to conduct his own experiment based off of Pavlov’s before he even told us what Pavlov’s experiment even was, so we were all confused. He went around the room and handed us all one napkin, then proceeded to dump a heaping tablespoons worth of lemonade mix onto our napkin. Still with no idea what was going on, he proceeded to play his 80’s song and told us to dip our tongues into the lemonade mix as the song played, and all of us started to salivate. The entire class proceeded to do this about 10 times, until the very last time he played the song but told us not to dip our tongues into the lemonade mix. We were confused as to why this time we weren’t supposed to, but 5 seconds later Mr. Ludlow said: “Alright wait for it… okay everyone do you notice you’re now salivating without the lemonade mix?” We all were mind boggled and wondered how that was even possible. Ever since I did this experiment senior year of high school with my favorite teacher Mr. Ludlow, I now will always enjoy this topic.

Think back to when you were young. What is the earliest memory that you can remember, and what age were you? Its pretty difficult isn’t it. Chances are, the earliest memories you remember is around 3-4 years old. The earliest age of conscious memory for most infants / children is just about the age of 3 1/2 (Bauer 2002). Now if you actually remembered a memory from that young age without just remembering the memory by it being told to you by someone else; most likely that memory was a traumatic event that happened to you. We tend to remember traumatic events very vividly, more so than any other.

Sigmund Freud, a famous neuroscientist, believed that because infantile memories are weak, there is an increase in a certain memory if the situation was traumatic. These memories are sometimes considered “flashbulb memories,” which are said to be nearly photographic. Traumatic events are a direct threat to a person’s well being, that is why we can remember them so clearly. When confronted with trauma, a child may not have the ability to deal with the experience. While very young children may not remember specific events at a certain age, they do remember emotions, images and can be reminded of situations that cause them to be upset.

When I was young, I had many vivid memories that I could remember at a later age but now if I try to think back to some without looking at pictures or hearing stories to refresh my memory, most of them have faded away. About a few weeks ago I was asked the same question I stated above; “What is the earliest memory that you can remember, and what age were you?” I thought long and hard, and turns out, the earliest memory I could possibly remember was a traumatic event for me. When I was about 2-3 years old I distinctly remember that I had knocked my two front teeth out with my height chair at the dinner table. I remember it was at my old house on Ferry Road, it was dinner time and I had a cheese stick in my hand and my mom told me to be careful with the chair because I was hanging on it and it was dangerously close to my face. Little did I know my mom was right, I pulled the chair straight down onto my face, knocking my two front teeth out sending me right into my very first emergency room visit.

We as human beings all have this wonderful thing inside of our heads; it is called the vertebrate cerebrum. In other words, it is our brain. The human brain is formed by two cerebral hemispheres that are separated by a groove, the longitudinal fissure. The brain can be described as being divided into left and right cerebral hemispheres. 

In a normal functioning brain, the left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for controlling the right side of the body. It also performs tasks that have to do with logic, language and analytical classification. On the other hand, the right hemisphere coordinates the left side of the body, and performs tasks that have to do with creativity, art, music and recognition of faces and shapes. For the very few people in this world, split brain patients function very differently. 

Split-brain or callosal syndrome is a type of disconnection syndrome when the corpus callosum connecting the two hemispheres of the brain is severed to some degree. It is an association of symptoms produced by disruption of or interference with the connection between the hemispheres of the brain.

 

 

In the image above, it shows split-brain patients can only respond to stimuli in the right visual field, but in their left visual field receiving stimuli they are able to see it and draw it, but not recite what they saw. Split brain patients are absolutely fascinating. Although they struggle with day to day normal tasks that regular brain patients do, they can function in a way that no one else can.

In an article that I read, there is a split brain patient named Vicki that struggled with daily tasks that people with normal brain patterns do not have difficulty doing. She would often be grocery shopping and see something in her left field of vision and went to grab it with her left hand, but her right hand often got in the way as she went to make her choices at the grocery store. Vicki described it as: “I’d reach with my right for the thing I wanted, but the left would come in and they’d kind of fight,” she says. “Almost like repelling magnets.” This describes her split brain activity during daily tasks. The article also described that she was put through tests and studies for her brain activity, she was tested how I described the brain pattern above, just like the picture depiction. She was unable to say the things that she saw in her right visual field, and she was not able to say the things she saw in her left visual field, but was able to draw them.

The disorder that Vicki had is an accurate representation of what a split brain patient is like. This article falls into the category of different split brain patterns and studies as I described above. Although it may seem incredible that the human brain is able to act that way, it is extremely serious that can alter a person’s entire life.