Summary and Precis of Journal Articles

Analysis of five cases with Neurogenic Stuttering following brain injury in the Basal Ganglia -Tetsuo Tani and Yasujiro Sakai. Journal of Fluency Disorders. 2011.

Case Study Summary – Biological Psychology
Word Count – 546
Student Number - 5965772

This Japanese study aimed to investigate and examine the stuttering patterns of five patients with basal ganglia injury. Tani and Sakai were interested in determining the causes and differences between neurogenic stuttering and developmental stuttering. In order to specifically measure the effect the basal ganglia has on the modulation of motor output rather than speech in general the stuttering symptoms experienced by participants could not present signs of aphasic disfluency or dysarthria. If aphasia was ruled out, the role of the basal ganglia in speech and language modulation will consequently be supported.
Patient 3, a 50 year old right handed male experienced right hemiparesis and dysarthria in 1996 following a stroke. When later entering hospital due to the worsening of the hemiparesis and dysarthria, a brain MRI revealed multiple cerebral infarctions in the bilateral basal ganglia and the left pons with most lesions appearing in the left putamen; speech disfluency was also noted. Patient 3 first experienced stuttering in November 1997 (Tani and Sakai 2011).
When examining the stuttering to determine the implications of the injury, patient 3 took part in speech fluency tests such as the repetition of 20 simple sentences and explanation of 3, 4 frame comic strips (Tani and Sakai 2011). For patient 3, the highest rate of stuttering, measured with the formula: stuttering occurrences / number of segments x 100, occurred during the comic strip task whilst demonstrating a stuttering type of syllable and part word repetitions. Patient 3 also showed accessory behaviours such as closing the eyes and grimacing. Later, The Standard Language Test of Aphasia showed patient 3 to be clear of aphasic disfluency and dysarthria enabling the diagnosis of neurogenic stuttering, therefore implicating the basal ganglia in speech, language and motor fluency.
The basal ganglia are a complex heterogeneous collection of interconnected nuclei (Pinel 2011) found on both sides of the thalamus outside and above the limbic system. It can be found within the temporal lobes of the telencephalon and has therefore shown to be highly responsible for cognition, movement coordination and voluntary movement (Pinel 2011). Theories of basal ganglia function are most commonly associated with the modulation of motor output but are also thought to be involved in a variety of cognitive functions (Pinel 2011), for instance the regulation of habit learning or action selection (DeLong and Wichmann 2009). It is the anatomy of the basal ganglia that suggests its role in modulatory function as they are ‘part of neural loops that receive cortical input from various cortical areas and transmit it back to the cortex via the thalamus; many of these loops carry signals to and from the motor areas of the cortex’ (Pinel 2011 pg. 203). Further support for this theory, including the role of basal ganglia thalamic circuits in motor function, can be seen with the research of Kropotov and Etlinger (1998) who suggest that these thalamic circuits play a key role in the initiation, preparation and suppression of our action selections for movement demonstrated through participants with Parkinson’s disorder. This, paired with the work of Tani and Sakai suggests that injury to the basal ganglia disrupts and inhibits the modulation of motor output causing motor disorders such as neurogenic stuttering, therefore supporting the theory that the basal ganglia controls the modulation of motor output.
References
Tani, T., & Sakai, Y. (2011). Analysis of five cases with neurogenic stuttering following brain injury in the basal ganglia. Journal of Fluency Disorders. Volume 36, Issue 1, March 2011, pages 1 -16.
Pinel, J. (2011). Biopsychology (Eighth Edition). Pearson Higher Education Inc.
DeLong, M., & Wichmann, T. (2009). Update on models of Basal Ganglia function and dysfunction. Parkinsonism and Related Disorders. Volume 15, Supplement 3, December 2009, Pages S237-S240.
Kropotov, J., & Etlinger, S. (1998). Selection of actions in the basal ganglia - thalamocortical circuits: review and model. International Journal of Psychophysiology. Volume 31, Issue 3, 1 March 1999, Pages 197-217.

Précis of a Journal Article - Blind ethics: Closing one’s eyes polarizes moral judgments and discourages dishonest behaviour. Caruso and Gino (2011).

Précis – Cognitive Psychology
Word Count – 1087
5965772

Gino and Caruso examined the results of four related experiments in order to demonstrate the relationship between closing one’s eyes and making moral judgements. Experiments included asking participants to listen to unethical scenarios with either their eyes closed or open and report the level of ethicality they felt was represented in the scenario; they were also asked to report how they felt they would behave in a similar scenario. As predicted, ‘people who considered ethical situations with their eyes closed rather than open judged immoral behaviours as more unethical and moral behaviours as more ethical’ (Caruso and Gino 2011, pg. 280). Similarly, people who considered behaviours with eyes closed stated the intention to act more ethically and avoid less ethical behaviours. Caruso and Gino suggest that this phenomenon was facilitated through the ability to more comprehensively imagine said behaviours with eyes closed; this therefore increased mental simulation which, in turn, accentuated emotional responses to ethical or unethical situations.

The rationale behind this piece of research has stemmed not only from cognitive psychology but also from business and law. Caruso and Gino have identified the implications of this research from a lawyer’s perspective, as a common technique used in court to help the jury empathise with defendants/victims requires jurors to close their eyes and imagine the details of a crime. If this technique is successful, Juror’s will feel sympathy for either the victim or the assailant and in turn help to incur either more severe or lenient sentencing. More specifically to cognitive psychology, this piece of research should help to identify whether ‘there may be something unique about having one’s eyes closed that is not solely a function of visual input’ (Caruso and Gino 2011, pg. 284) and reveal more about the relationship between cognition and emotion. However, from a business perspective, Gino and Caruso acknowledge that ethical misconduct by employees and consumers has increased in recent years and although various fields have examined reasons why people break ethical boundaries, a solution has not been identified for this problem. Gino and Caruso suggest that if the findings are concurrent with their hypothesis then closing one’s eyes during important ethical decisions may in fact help to reduce unethical and immoral behaviour in the workplace.

The introductory argument for this study begins with the knowledge that a common tactic among trial lawyers involves Jurors closing their eyes to imagine the events of the crime in question. This tactic is aimed at ‘facilitating the jurors’ ability to visualize the events they are imagining, thereby heightening their emotional reactions to the situation’ (Gino and Caruso 2011, pg. 280). This information immediately gives an element of credibility to Gino and Caruso’s research as the context of the area being explored is defined whilst providing important implications for the findings. Specifically, Caruso and Gino argue that ‘closing one’s eyes can have systematic effects on people’s responses to ethical situations because of the heightened emotional reactions that follow from mentally simulating events’ (Caruso and Gino 2011, pg. 280). This is not only practical and logical but also supported across previous research, for example, Fenigstein, Scheier and Buss (1975) looked at practises ranging from ancient meditation to routine concentration tasks and suggested that across time, the method of closing one’s eyes facilitates the ability to focus in on our emotional states. Further still, it has been suggested that the brain interprets the same information differently when encoding it with the eyes open as opposed to closed (Gino and Caruso 2011). Lerner, Papo, Zhdanov, Belozersky, & Hendler (2009) support this as their participants reported feeling more intense negative emotion when listening to sad music with their eyes closed as opposed to open. Gino and Caruso ‘suggest that when people have their eyes closed, they are more likely to engage in mental simulation of the situation they are considering, which will make moral judgments more extreme and will encourage ethical, rather than unethical, behaviour’ (Caruso and Gino 2011, pg. 280). This is also supported in research which suggests that ‘the experience of emotion is an important driver of people’s beliefs about the moral acceptability of an action’ (Haidt 2001, as cited in Gino and Caruso 2011, pg. 281). The support that research in this area provides, makes Gino and Caruso’s argument both logical and useful.

The use of four separate experiments as a methodological tool was employed with the intention to rule out the 4 main extraneous variables within the study such as, the idea that closing one’s eyes only increases attention to the situation participants are evaluating as ethical or unethical. This methodology is successful as it leaves little room for criticism within the experiment especially as Gino and Caruso have managed to exclude alternative explanations for the behaviour represented. The result of each experiment supports their hypothesis with participants in the eyes closed situations consistently rating unethical behaviours as less ethical than the eyes open group; they also found a significant difference in the amount of mental simulation, with eyes closed groups simulating much more those with eyes open. Gino and Caruso aimed to reduce hypothesis guessing, a threat to the construct validity of the research, by asking the participants whether ‘any tasks influenced your performance on any subsequent tasks?’ (Gino and Caruso 2011, pg. 281) in which they found no participants to believe this. The one criticism for the methodology of this research would stem from the fact that all four experiments were conducted in a lab setting involving artificial tasks suggesting that ethical behaviour may be different in real life situations. Social Desirability bias could also manipulate responses as participants may not wish researchers to deem them unethical.

The general discussion for this research highlights that the hypothesis of closing one’s eyes will polarize ethical judgements and discourage dishonest behaviour is successfully supported as results showed a significant difference between the ethical responses of those with eyes open and those with eyes closed. However, Gino and Caruso are also able to identify that their research does not account for the reasons why closing one’s eyes actually increases mental simulation in the first place, an area which further research could aim to discover. This discussion is balanced and rigorous as they have thought of all possible avenues that could add strength or weakness to their argument.

Overall, this piece of research is thorough and precise with few methodological errors; the research contributes significantly to the relationship between cognition and emotion and provides practical implications for the reduction of ethical misconduct in and around the workplace.

References
Caruso, M,. & Gino, F. (2011) Blind ethics: Closing one’s eyes polarizes moral judgments and discourages dishonest behaviour. Cognition. Volume 118, Issue 2, February 2011, Pages 280-285.

Fenigstein, A., Scheier, M. F., & Buss, A. H. (1975). Public and private self-consciousness:
Assessment and theory. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 43, 522–527.

Lerner, Y., Papo, D., Zhdanov, A., Belozersky, L., & Hendler, T. (2009). Eyes wide shut: Amygdala mediates eyes-closed effect on emotional experience with music. PLoS One, 4, e6230.

Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108, 814–834.