Michael Gazzaniga
American neuroscientist and psychobiologist of split-brain research
American neuroscientist who trained under Roger Sperry at Caltech and studied split-brain patients. He proposed the left-hemisphere interpreter and, with George A. Miller, helped give cognitive neuroscience its name in 1978.
Why this person matters
Gazzaniga tested individual split-brain patients and drew from them a view of how the hemispheres divide cognitive work. His interpreter proposal is an example of how a brain system might explain behaviour after the fact.
Main contributions
Split-brain research with Sperry
His Caltech doctoral work examined split-brain patients under Roger Sperry. He tested W.J., the first California split-brain patient, and found that each hemisphere could guide the opposite hand but only the left could describe what it saw.
The left-hemisphere interpreter
Work with patients P.S. and V.P. led to the idea of a left-hemisphere system, later named the Interpreter, that produces explanations for actions or emotions whose cause it cannot see. Its explanations are sometimes inaccurate.
Cognitive neuroscience
In 1978 he and George A. Miller gave the field its name.
Context and limits
The findings rest on a small number of named individual patients. The interpreter is a hypothesis about how explanations are generated, and the sources read list no critiques of it, so none are assessed here.
In your introductory course
Biological bases of behaviour.Appears in the biological chapter where split-brain studies and the left and right hemispheres are taught.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 3.4. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1967
Joined the University of California, Santa Barbara as an assistant professor of psychology.
- 1978
Named cognitive neuroscience with George A. Miller.
- 1996
Became founding director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Dartmouth.
- 2006
Became founding director of the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Sources
- Dartmouth News, Dartmouth alumnus and former dean elected into National Academy of Sciences (2011)University. Institutional biography inspected.
- Wikipedia, Michael GazzanigaReference work. Reference article inspected.