The Brain and the Voice in Speech and SongMott, F. W. (Frederick Walker)
Science
The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song
Mott, F. W. (Frederick Walker)
Voice
Since destructive lesions of the speech zone of the left hemisphere in
right-handed persons leads to inability to revive the memory pictures of
the sounds of words as heard in ordinary speech, the revival of visual
impressions as seen in printed or written characters, and of the
kinæsthetic (sense of movement) impressions concerned with the alterations
of the minute tensions of the muscle structures employed in the
articulation of words, it must be presumed that the left hemisphere in
right-handed persons is dominant in speech and silent thought; it may even
dominate the use of the left hand for many movements. But does not the
right hemisphere take a part? Yes; and I will give my reasons later for
supposing that the whole brain is in action. During the voluntary recall of
words in speech and thought by virtue of the intimate association tracts
connecting the grey matter of the whole speech zone, it is not a single
part of this zone which is in action, but the whole of it; and when we
assign to definite parts of the speech zone different functions in
connection with language, we really refer to areas in which the process is
most active or is primarily initiated, for the whole brain is in action
just as it is in the recognition of an object which we see, hear, feel, or
move. What really comes before us is contributed more by the mind itself
than by the present object.
There is, however, a direct functional association between the auditory and
glosso-kinæsthetic (sense of movement of the tongue) centres on the one
hand and the visual and cheiro-kinæsthetic (sense of movement of the hand)
on the other. No less intimate must be the connection between the auditory
word-centre and the visual word-centre; they must necessarily be called
into association actively in successive units of time, as in reading aloud
or writing from dictation. Educated deaf mutes think with revived visual
symbols either of lips or fingers. Words are to a great extent symbols
whereby we carry on thought, and thinking becomes more elaborate and
complex as we rise in the scale of civilisation, because more and more are
verbal symbols instituted for concrete visual images.
In which portion of the brain are words primarily and principally revived
during the process of thinking? I have already alluded to the views of
Stricker and those who follow him, viz. that words are the revived images
of the feelings of the sense of movement, caused by the alteration in the
tension of the muscles of articulation occurring during speech, with or
without phonation. There is another which I think the correct view, that
words are revived in thought primarily as auditory images, so that the
sense of hearing is essential for articulation as well as phonation; the
two operations of the vocal organ as an instrument of the mind being
inseparable. The arguments in favour of this are:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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