User:Jwardwell6/sandbox

Section 1
This is my Sandbox. This is where I will practice. I will make this bold.

Sub heading 1

 * This is for neuroscience.
 * I will use this page to write about my topic and edit.

Section 2

 * 1) number one
 * 2) number one point one

Section 3

 * Link to an external page Middlebury College Web Site

Section 4

 * Link to an internal (wikipedia) page Middlebury College on Wikipedia

Overview
The McGill picture anomaly test is a scientific test that was created by Donald O. Hebb of McGill University and N.W. Morton. The McGill picture anomaly test is a series of pictures that each have something out of place in the photo in which a patient is asked to identify what is out of place in the picture; the test provided evidence that supported that the right temporal lobe is involved in visual recognition.

Right Temporal Lobe
The right temporal lobe is a part of the ventral stream in the visual pathway. The ventral stream is involved in object perception and visual recognition such as faces and objects, and is therefore often referred to in relation to the McGill Picture Anomaly test. The ventral stream is often referred to as the "what" stream and provides a portrayal of the objects in the receptive field that ultimately aids in identifying the importance of the object. The different functions of each lobe account for the "disturbance of non-language capacities" experienced after the removal of the right temporal lobe. If the ventral stream is disturbed or altered, the subject will not lose his vision but the ability to recognize "what" the object is in his receptive field. Disturbances in the ventral stream can be caused by damage or deterioration to any part of the brain involved in the ventral stream including the right temporal lobe.

Background
Donald O. Hebb and N.W. Norton combined the McGill Picture Anomaly test with the Verbal Situation series to create the McGill Adult Comprehension Examination . The McGill Picture Anomaly test was originally designed as a nonverbal test to measure the intelligence of an individual and to observe human behavior. Hebb and Norton intended for either test of the McGill Adult Comprehension Examination to be used alone; they also created the tests with the intention that either test could be used for other experiments measuring intelligence . Hebb and Norton created the Picture Anomaly test in 1943 after Hebb observed the defects following a right temporal lobe lobectomy .. The McGill Picture Anomaly test has had little diagnostic use experiments testing the effects of defects to the right temporal lobe. Hebb was critical of the Stanford-Binet and Wechsler intelligence tests when they were used with brain surgery patients. Hebb's criticism focused on how these tests only focused on overall intelligence and did not assess one aspect of intelligence. Hebb created the Adult Comprehension test and McGill Picture Anomaly Test in order to measure the specific effects that some patients have after brain surgery.

Conducting the Test
The McGill Picture Anomaly Test is a non-verbal test and requires the subject to simply point out the aspect of the photo or drawing that is out of place. When conducting the test, Hebb and Morton made it clear that the experimenter should use very little verbal instructions in order to eliminate the possibly of influencing the subject. Any remarks made by the participant during testing are ignored and do not contribute to the participant's overall score because the test is purely visual. Each series of the MPAT is comprised of 34 pictures each with an absurdity that is obvious to subjects with intact and normal functioning right temporal lobes but is more difficult for subjects with lesions or injuries of the right temporal lobe to recognize. Patients would often point to something that was considered normal in the picture or would point to a random object in the picture because they did not know what the absurdity was. Donald O. Hebb and N.W. Norton combined the MPAT with the verbal situation series to create the McGill Adult Comprehension Examination which is used to measure adult intelligence.

Experiments
The McGill Picture Anomaly Test has been used in studies trying to measure intelligence and in studies trying to use it as a component of diagnosis. Experiments that used the MPAT for diagnostic value have shown no significant results that support any diagnostic value to the test. The potential diagnostic value of the MPAT would be in visual perception. The MPAT has been used in diagnosing patients with visual-constructive disabilities, and if they receive a normal score on the test, then they are not considered to have any difficulties with picture-interpretation tasks. An experiment conducted by William Sloan and Barbara Oblinger at Lincoln State School and Colony attempted to see if there were diagnostic values of Picture Anomaly tests and Verbal Absurdity tests in mental institution evaluations of patients. Sloan and Oblinger found that the Verbal Absurditity tests had some significant findings but there were no significant findings when using the MPAT. Sloan and Oblinger believe that the sample size may have effected the findings for the MPAT but have not conducted a follow up experiment testing that hypothesis.

Another experiment conducted by Denis Shalman attempted to see if the McGill Picture Anomaly Test has a diagnostic value with temporal lobe epilepsy. Shalman used patients with right temporal lobe epileptic episodes and patients with left temporal lobe epileptic episodes; Shalman hoped to replicate Brenda Milner's results which used the MPAT on patients with a temporal lobe lobectomy which found that certain dysfunctions in patients with disturbances of the right temporal lobe affected visual recognition. Milner found that when the right temporal lobe was removed from a patient, pictures and representational drawings became unclear and lost their distinctiveness to the patient. Shalman's findings did not support Milner's findings and showed that the McGill Picture Anomaly Test does not have the diagnostic value that Milner had previously claimed. Although the McGill Picture Anomaly Test has had little diagnostic value, the test is still a common test that experimenters use to determine if their are any problems with visual recognition and interpretation or the right temporal lobe.
 * Tried to add a photo example of a picture that would be on the test however the I called the APA am was not given copyrights to use the photo...