Maria is testing the behavior of monkeys. First, she shows the monkey a rectangle. Then she shows the monkey a rectangle and a c
ylinder. If the monkey pushes aside the rectangle, Maria gives the monkey a food reward. In the second part of the experiment, Maria removes part of the monkey's brain, after which this problem was very difficult for the monkey. What part of the monkey's brain was removed?
The temporal lobe is the part of the brain involved in primary auditory perception by receiving sensory information from the ears and secondary areas and translating in into meaningful units such as speech and words. It was proved since 1954 by Mishkin and Pribram that the removal of the temporal lobe part of the brain produces a severe visual discrimination deficit in monkeys. This is the case for Maria's experiment, when the monkey was not able to differentiate between the rectangle and the cylinder anymore. Therefore, it is very likely that the part of the monkey's brain that was removed was the temporal lobe.
