| A strength of the Damasio study? | It was used by making modern technology, using a software to create a virtual 3D replica of Gage's skull. This makes it more objective evidence of the damaged skull rather than subjective inferences of his doctor. Gives more of a scientific understanding. |
| A strength of the Damasio study? | The results can be used to make predictions about how the behavior may change if the frontal lobe was damaged. This could help doctors and the victim's family members understand what is happening to the patient and why. This means it can be usefully applied to understand the effects of brain damaged irl. |
| A weakness of the Damasio study? | They sued information that has been collected over 150 years ago in their investigation. They used the doctors report from after the accident. This means that the data is subjective and they cannot be sure if it was accurate. Conclusions may lack validity |
| A weakness of the Damasio study? | Small sample and unrepresentative. Phineas Gage is a unique case of brain damage, this accident may not happen in the present day. His behavior may be different to other people with frontal lobe damage. Results may lack generalisablity to others who have experienced different types of frontal lobe damage . |
| What did Damasio find about the left and right hemisphere of the frontal lobe? | They were likely to be damaged and were confident that the damage was localised to this area and no other parts of the brain. |
| What did Damasio find about the white matter? | Is were all the neurons pass their messages along the axon fibers, therefore the damage in this area would result in not being able to send of receive neural messages. |
| What did Damasio find about the different areas of damage to the frontal lobe? | Worse in the ventromedial region of the frontal lobe (entry point) compared tot eh dorsolateral region of the frontal lobe (exit point) |
| What was the conclusion about the ventromedial area of the frontal lobe? and how did they find this out? | It was important for decision making and controlling impulsive behaviors as well as controlling emotions.
They compared the damaged brain area to the reported changes in Gage's behaviour. |
| How were the findings of Damasio supported? | Other patients with damage to the same area of the brain showed similar characteristics that Gage had after is accident. |
