To fully understand how neural activity generates psychological functions, we need converging lines of evidence from different methods. Explain why such converging lines of evidence are useful.
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This study deals with the topic of cognitive psychology. In order to grasp a full and in-depth understanding about how neural activity generates psychological functions, there has to be an example of a chosen topic to represent these 'psychological functions'. 'Memory' is the chosen topic to be discussed in this study. Since memory can be formed in three main stages (encoding, storage and retrieval/recall), it is vital that a number of neural activities take place to activate these stages so that skills can be learnt or retrieve information stored in the brain, or recall a moment that occurred in the past. Therefore, many experimenters have created a wide range of sources in order to figure out how neural activity functions memory in different processes. These sources, discussed in this study, will conclude how brain damage effects memory in the human brain and how Alzheimer's disease affects memory processes by using techniques such as fMRI scanning, lab experiments and case studies. Each experimenter uses different types of methods to create converging lines of evidence which is able to determine whether or not neural activity generates memory processes in a reliable way since different methodologies have different strengths and limitations.
A study looked into how hypoxic brain damage affected a person's (patient D.B) memory ability by testing his ability to recall past experiences and imagine future scenarios. Before the patient's heart attack, he revealed that he was unable to consciously remember anything about his past experiences. The experimenter found that neuropsychological disconnections between episodic and semantic memory for the past also may relate to the ability to anticipate the future since the results showed that the patient's free recall, recognition, lived past and lived future memory was very poor compared to the two neurologically healthy patients. (Klein et al, 2002). This was found out by using a laboratory experiment setting where the experimenter used techniques such as digit span where immediate memory was assessed by having the participants repeat back a list of digits presented to them every 2 seconds, starting with a number of two digits. If the list was said correctly, an extra digit would be added the next time around. Free recall was another technique used in this lab experiment where each participant had to verbally recall as many of the three lists of 16 unrelated nouns read aloud by the experimenter at a rate of one noun every 2 seconds