Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Maguire et al (2000)
- Aim
- Determine whether changes could be
detected in the brains of humans who have
extreme experiences of spatial navigation.
- Predicted that any differences in the
brains of the taxi-drivers would show
up in the hippocampus.
- The assumption that the
hippocampus has plasticity.
- Key Terms
- Hippocampus
- An area of the brain which
appears to be responsible for
memory.
- Quasi-experiment
- The IV varies naturally without being
manipulated by the experimenter.
- MRI scan
- A method that uses radio waves to
obtain 3D images of the brain.
- Procedure
- 16 male taxi drivers who had passed 'The
Knowledge'.
- All right handed
- Aged between 32 and 62
- Control group were non-taxi drivers
- All right handed
- Aged between 32 and 62
- Quasi-experiment
- Analysed MRI scans using pixel
counting and voxel based morphology
methods
- Correlated with the length of time the taxi
drivers had been licensed
- Findings
- The brains of the taxi drivers showed and
increase of grey matter in the right and left
hippocampus
- The control group had greater grey matter volume in the
anterior hippocampus
- The posterior hippocampus was
greater in the taxi drivers
- No other differences were found
between the groups
- Conclusions
- The more experienced the taxi
driver, the larger the volume of
his posterior hippocampus
- The hippocampus increases
in size over time
- Strengths
- The data collected is quantitative and
was measured with precise equipment
- Should be reliable and not
subjected to any biases
- The scans are safe,
painless and
non-invasive
- Weaknesses
- Differences between groups
could be due to some other
factors
- Differing experiences of the two
groups could affect differences in
the results.