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Cognition and physiology


Gaby

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I am currently preparing for my exams thus choosing studies to learn. As I'm using various books, I can pick and choose. In Pearson Baccalaureate textbook I found the following study:

Maguire et al. (2000)

Aim: To investigate the changes in the brains of experience London taxi drivers

Procedure: London taxi drivers must undertake spacial training that takes about two years to complete during which time they must learn the roads and routes to the extent that they can reliably navigate their way around the central area without the aid of a map. On the basis of this information, Maguire predicted that fully licensed London taxi drivers will have structural differences in their hippocampi as a result of this learning experience. To investigate it he used MRI scans of fully licensed male taxi drivers with a range of years' experience driving, and compared them with control subjects. Controls were healthy males who did not drive taxis.

Results: Both left and right hippocampi were significantly higher in volume in taxi drivers' brains, although there were some parts of the hippocampi that were smaller in taxi drivers. They also found a positive correlation between volume of hippocampi and time spent as a taxi driver.

Conclusion: There has probably been a redistribution of grey matter in the hippocampi as a result of intense development and use of spatial memory skills, specifically those relating to learning and remembering routes through the city.

I was wondering if anyone could tell me if it will work for the learning outcome: Examine one interaction between cognition and physiology in terms of behaviour.

Thank you for your help. :)

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I concluded that their being taxi drivers resulted in the greater volume of hippocampi but again, for me, it results again in even greater spatial skills, so it's kind of a circle, so I would say that this one is ok. Generally I think that those two learning outcomes about cognition and physiology and environment and physiology are kind of similar - I mean, you can use lots of studies in both cases, you just have to present them in a specific way.

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Not sure how helpful (or correct for that matter) I can be, but these are my general thoughts:

Because this is a 22 marker question, you may need to explore more than 1 study (and do an evaluation). The study you current have, I believe, could work if you specifically mention that the cognitive process you are studying is spatial memory skills (or memory skills in general). You will need to find another study that specifically relates to this cognitive process as well.

In my personal notes, I focus on amnesia within this section and relate that back to memory

Hope it helps a little :)

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Iliana is right that the environment and cognition questions are similar, as long as you argue the relationship properly there is definitely overlap with the studies you can use for these questions.

Rainbow is also right that because it is an LAQ, you should have more than one study. There is the meditation study for example with the monks and serotonin levels.

In short, you can definitely use this study for this question, it's easy to remember too I think :).

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