Exploring the Significance of Brain Size in Human Evolution

15 Oct Exploring the Significance of Brain Size in Human Evolution

ADHD can affect learning and social relationships.There are different assessments for ADHD, and for the diagnosis to be confirmed the difficulties must be ongoing, usually from childhood. If the person has a developmental disorder, or is simply having a difficult time, or has other conditions that could explain the difficulties, then they may not meet the criteria for ADHD.What about CVI? This does not mean that everyone with ADHD has CVI, but some will, and we think it is worth checking. Many of the suggestions for CVI, like reducing crowding and complexity, slowing things down, building memories and ensuring emotional and physical wellbeing, will help a person with ADHD behaviours caused by CVI. If the behaviours are not caused by CVI, the suggestions certainly won’t harm, and could still help.

History of Psychology Timeline – 20 Question Worksheet

Atthe same time, clinicians need to guard against doing too much of theirpatient’s thinking for them. For example, Ylvisaker and Feeney (draft2004 online) have reviewed the literature on paediatric frontalrehabilitation and identify the fundamental problem as one of measuringpatients’ “self-determination” in a clinician-patient encounter wherethe clinician is likely to be doing all the determining. They adopt Wehmeyer,Agran, and Hughes’ (1998) analysis of self-determination into four components…..

• Because there is insufficient time for neural impulses to travel from your brain to your muscles after you have sensed the stimulus, and for your muscles contract to click on the mouse (or trackpad or touchscreen), you must have started your mouse click well before you were consciously aware of the visual stimulus.
• While studies show that there is a slight correlation between brain size and intelligence, it’s not as clear-cut as one might think.
• Click here for more information on PMLD from UKs NHS.See also Developmental Delay and Global Developmental Delay, above.
• As humans migrated to different environments, new challenges emerged that required advanced cognitive abilities.
• Forher part, Goldman-Rakic has resurrected Jacobsen’s delayed response paradigm,but with the added sophistication of modern electrode technology to monitor theelectrical behaviour of single neurons in the prefrontal cortex.

A July 2015 study found that dynamic proprioceptive activities—which specifically involve the cerebellum—increased working memory by 50 percent. Working memory creates the mental workspace that facilitates creativity and fluid intelligence. In the passage below, I cobbled together a timeline of various studies I’ve written about in previous Psychology Today blog posts. All of these findings are part of my ongoing attempt to solve the riddle of what role the cerebellum (Latin for “little brain”) plays in cognitive and creative processes.

Language and general knowledge are unaffected, andrecognition memory seems to be relatively well preserved compared to recall.Confabulation (discussed in detail in Section 9) is common, as in Kapur andCoughlan’s cerebrumiq (1980) ACoA patient SB ….. Hubel and Wiesel carried out an experiment on kittens and adults cats in 1963 which proved that the visual cortex develops during a critical period early in life. First, they prevented visual stimulation in one eye by sewing up one eye of each kitten. Several months later, they unstitched the eye and found that the kittens had gone blind in one eye.

Cranial capacity refers to the volume of the skull, which directly correlates with brain size. As human ancestors evolved, their cranial capacity gradually increased, providing space for the brain to grow while maintaining structural integrity. The development of the human skull—especially the enlargement of the cranial vault—allowed for an expanded brain that could support more complex cognitive functions.

The cerebral cortex ????

Jacobs(2004 online) offersa concise alternative description of the dysexecutive and disinhibited types,if interested take methere. “On the tenth day afteroperation the patient was again responsive, but was disoriented, irrational,and slightly facetious and used obscene language” (p426). Hereare the main components of the forebrain, set in the broader context of themain divisions of the central nervous system …..

Psychology: Intelligence PowerPoints / Google Slides + Guided Notes, and Video Links

• However, despite this size difference, early humans were capable of remarkable advancements that shaped the course of human history.
• Right at the base of the brain and above the spinal cord is a structure called the medulla oblongata.
• Wemust now make an explicit connection between two study areas – the Tim Shallicewith the reputation as frontal lobe theorist is the same Tim Shallice whoteamed up with America’sDonald Norman in the early 1980s to formulate their theory of the SupervisoryAttentional System (SAS).
• The gradual development of rostral processing power during evolution is oftenreferred to as “encephalisation”, and there is a logicalpattern to what happens as you move up through the animal kingdom, becausebrain anatomy simply follows lifestyle demand.

When examining brain size evolution, it’s essential to consider the different stages that our ancestors passed through. The first hominids, such as Australopithecus, had brains around the size of a modern chimpanzee’s—about 400 to 500 cubic centimeters. Fast forward to Homo habilis, who lived around 2.3 to 1.4 million years ago, and their brain size had increased to roughly 510 to 600 cubic centimeters. This change marks an important milestone in human evolution, as it reflects the beginning of more advanced cognitive processes like tool-making, communication, and problem-solving. Understanding the specific brain mechanics and power sources that drive fluid intelligence helps neuroscientists characterize cognitive processes involved in various types of intelligence and offers insights into what types of interventions might improve fluid intelligence. For example, I have a hypothesis that aerobic exercise stimulates creativity and fluid intelligence, which this new research corroborates.

IQ tests are also unreliable, as many factors, including fatigue or a psychiatric condition, can influence the result. This means that your IQ might fluctuate depending on which day you take the test. BarbaraWilson (MRC, Cambridge,first author of the BADS package, and editor of the journal NeuropsychologicalRehabilitation) discussed whether memory disabilities could ever beeffectively treated ….. Coltheartsaw the primary clinical decision as being whether to go for”compensation” of a function or its “restoration”. He thenwarned that this decision would never be easy until assessments were improvedto the point of identifying whether neural resources for restoration wereactually available.

The economicswere another cause of overeagerness to operate – the lobotomies cost $250 andneeded to be carried out only once, whereas the costs of institutionalisationwere over $35,000 per patient per annum. He developeda procedure known as the restricted undercut specifically to attack thistract and this tract alone (for details of which, see Blakemore, 1977, p181).The most modern methods are assisted by three-dimensional computer imaging ofthe patient’s brain. Electrodes are positioned using an externally mountedstereotaxic frame, and the lesions produced either by electro-coagulation or minuteradioactive implant. Lesions can therefore be placed very precisely and extendonly a few millimetres. This allows what Girgis (1971) describes as”unnecessary encroachment” upon uninvolved cortex to be more or lesstotally avoided.