Reference no: EM131666485

Considerable disagreement exists about the extent to which our brains are composed of well-defined modules, each shaped by selection to carry out specialized tasks, as opposed to a brain composed of generalized networks with much functional plasticity. In light of this argument, what do you make of the following findings? Humans are extremely good at recognizing familiar faces, thanks to various elements of the brain. Persons with certain kinds of damage to the fusiform gyrus, which is on the underside of the cerebral cortex, lose the ability to recognize familiar faces, a deficit much more likely to occur after damage to the right hemisphere of the brain. (See The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks.) Functional magnetic resonance imaging reveals that neurons in a small part of the posterior fusiform gyrus, the facial fusiform area, fire only when a person looks at a face. This part of the brain does not respond to pictures of inanimate objects, although another nearby region of the brain does.