HM was a patient in whom the medial temporal lobe was surgically removed due to severe epilepsy. His corpus callosum was removed as well. His intelligence and perception were still intact, but he did have specific long-term memory problems. New scientific ideas for neuroscience were that specific areas in the bran are specialized for long-term memory and that there’s a distinction between types of memory (explicit vs. implicit, long-term vs. working memory).
Research questions can be descriptive (to observe and record behaviour), correlational (to detect naturally occurring relationships; to assess how well one variable predicts another) or experimental (to explore cause and effect). Each have their pros and cons. Clinically oriented neuropsychological research is to understand symptoms and disease progression and to do research into neuropsychological test of test batteries. Fundamental neuropsychological research is to understand cognitive behaviours and to understand the relation between cognitive disorders and brain pathology.
An advantage of group studies is to minimize the influence of noise and outliers, and the results are more generalizable. A disadvantage is that brain lesions differ between patients, therefore make it harder to generalize the results.
An advantage of case studies is to view respects of individual differences and therefore get a detailed description. A disadvantage is that there’s less control over influential variables and the results are more difficult to generalize.
Single disassociation is when a lesion causes deficit in task A, but not in task B. Double association is when lesion X causes deficits in task A and not B, and when lesion Y causes deficits in task B and not in task A.
