The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)James, William
Philosophy
The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2)
James, William
Psychology
I have now given, as far as the nature of this book will allow, a
complete account of the present state of the localization-question.
In its main outlines it stands firm, though much has still to be
discovered. The anterior frontal lobes, for example, so far as is yet
known, have no definite functions. Goltz finds that dogs bereft of them
both are incessantly in motion, and excitable by every small stimulus.
They are irascible and amative in an extraordinary degree, and their
sides grow bare with perpetual reflex scratching; but they show no
_local_ troubles of either motion or sensibility. In monkeys not even
this lack of inhibitory ability is shown, and neither stimulation nor
excision of the prefrontal lobes produces any symptoms whatever. One
monkey of Horsley and Schaefer's was as tame, and did certain tricks as
well, after as before the operation.[58] It is probable that we have
about reached the limits of what can be learned about brain-functions
from vivisecting inferior animals, and that we must hereafter look more
exclusively to human pathology for light. The existence of separate
speech and writing centres in the left hemisphere in man; the fact
that palsy from cortical injury is so much more complete and enduring
in man and the monkey than in dogs; and the farther fact that it seems
more difficult to get complete sensorial blindness from cortical
ablations in the lower animals than in man, all show that functions get
more specially localized as evolution goes on. In birds localization
seems hardly to exist, and in rodents it is much less conspicuous than
in carnivora. Even for man, however, Munk's way of mapping out the
cortex into absolute areas within which only one movement or sensation
is represented is surely false. The truth seems to be rather that,
although there is a correspondence of certain regions of the brain to
certain regions of the body, yet the several _parts_ within each bodily
region are represented throughout the _whole_ of the corresponding
brain-region like pepper and salt sprinkled from the same caster. This,
however, does not prevent each 'part' from having its _focus_ at one
spot within the brain-region. The various brain-regions merge into each
other in the same mixed way. As Mr. Horsley says: "There are border
centres, and the area of representation of the face merges into that
for the representation of the upper limb. If there was a focal lesion
at that point, you would have the movements of these two parts starting
together."[59] The accompanying figure from Paneth shows just how the
matter stands in the dog.[60]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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