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(MacPherson et al., 2016). And if responsible for the absence of birthday cake, they may feel
no regret (Bault et al., 2019).
Frontal lobe damage also can alter personality and remove a person’s inhibitions. Con-
PRACTICE sider the classic case of railroad worker Phineas Gage. One afternoon in 1848, Gage, then
25 years old, was using a tamping iron to pack gunpowder into a rock. A spark ignited the
Research Methods & Design gunpowder, shooting the rod up through his left cheek and out the top of his skull, leaving
his frontal lobes damaged (Figure 1.4-17). To everyone’s amazement, Gage was immedi-
(SP 2) ately able to sit up and speak, and after the wound healed, he returned to work. But the
(5 minutes) Explain to your blast damaged connections between his frontal lobes and the brain regions that control
emotion and decision making (Thiebaut de Schotten et al., 2015; Van Horn et al., 2012).
students that the story of Phineas The previously friendly, soft-spoken man was now irritable, profane, and dishonest. This
Gage has become one of the most person, said his friends, was “no longer Gage.” Most of his mental abilities and memories
famous in all of psychology. The were intact, but for the next few years his personality was not. (Gage later lost his rail-
road job, but over time he adapted to his disability and found work as a stagecoach driver
world was shocked by his injury, [Macmillan & Lena, 2010].)
but mainly because he survived
and was able to perform most Figure 1.4-17
daily functions. His complete A blast from the past
personality change was an early (a) Phineas Gage’s skull was kept as a
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Not for redistribution.
medical record. Using measurements
case study showing how the frontal and modern neuroimaging techniques,
researchers have reconstructed the
lobes work with other parts of the probable path of the rod through Gage’s Warren Anatomical Museum in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine.
brain to create a working whole. brain (Van Horn et al., 2012). (b) This photo
shows Gage after his accident. (The image
Ask students to review what they has been reversed to show the features
correctly. Early photos, including this one,
learned about case studies in were actually mirror images.) Gift of Jack and Beverly Wilgus
Module 0.3 and relate it to the
Phineas Gage case.
(a) (b)
Studies of other people with damaged frontal lobes have revealed similar impair-
®
TEACH 1.4-7 AP Science Practice ments. Not only do they become less inhibited (without the frontal lobe brakes on their
Research impulses), but their moral judgments also seem unrestrained. Cecil Clayton lost 20 percent
Enrichment Phineas Gage is a classic example of his left frontal lobe in a 1972 sawmill accident. Thereafter, his intelligence test score
Tell your students that when Albert of a case study, a non- experimental dropped to an elementary school level and he displayed increased impulsivity. In 1996, he
fatally shot a deputy sheriff. In 2015, when he was 74, the State of Missouri executed him
method. A case study hopes to
Einstein died in 1955, Dr. Thomas reveal universal principles, but (Williams, 2015).
generalizing its findings requires
The frontal lobes help steer us toward kindness and away from violence (Achterberg
Harvey, with the family’s consent, kept Copyright © Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
further research.
et al., 2020; Lieberman et al., 2019). With their frontal lobes ruptured, people’s moral com-
his brain for scientific study. Following pass seems separated from their actions. They know right from wrong but often don’t care.
are some of his findings: Association areas also perform other mental functions. The parietal lobes, parts of
which were large and unusually shaped in Einstein’s normal-weight brain, enable mathe-
• Although the overall size of matical and spatial reasoning (Amalric & Dehaene, 2019; Wilkey et al., 2018). Stimulation of
Einstein’s brain was average, one parietal lobe area in patients undergoing brain surgery produced a feeling of wanting
to move an upper limb, the lips, or the tongue, but without any actual movement. With
the region called the inferior increased stimulation, patients falsely believed they had moved. Curiously, when surgeons
parietal lobe, where visual-spatial stimulated a different association area near the motor cortex in the frontal lobes, the patients
cognition, mathematical thought, did move but had no awareness of doing so (Desmurget et al., 2009). These head-scratching
and imagery of movement are
controlled, was 15 percent wider
than normal. Einstein’s insights 76 Unit 1 Biological Bases of Behavior
were often the result of visual
images that he translated into
mathematics. For example, his • Critics observe that although Einstein’s 15/12/23 9:23 AM
03_myersAPpsychology4e_28116_ch01_002_163.indd 76
special theory of relativity was brain may well be different, the cause-
based on what he thought it would effect relationship is uncertain. The
be like to ride through space on a differences may be the result of strenuous
beam of light.
mental exercise, rather than the cause of
• A feature known as the Sylvian genius.
fissure (a groove that normally
runs through the brain tissue) was
shorter than average. This meant Information from Lemonick, M. D. (1999, June 28). Was
Einstein’s brain built for brilliance? Time, p. 54; Witelson, S. F.,
that the brain cells were packed Kigar, D. L., & Harvey, T. (1999). The exceptional brain of
more closely together, permitting Albert Einstein. The Lancet, 353, 2149–2153.
more interconnections and cross-
referencing of information.

76 Unit 1 Biological Bases of Behavior

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