H. Scheich – författare

o. D. CREUTZFELDT, Max-Planck-Institut fUr Biophysikalische Chern ie, D-3400 G6ttingen, FRG In the name of the European Brain and Behaviour Society (EBBS) and the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, I welcome you to this workshop on Hearing Mechanisms and Speech. It is the aim of EBBS, to tackle brain mechanisms of complex behavioral performances. Language is certainly a complex - haviour, and understanding of language as well. Through language an individual is able to express the internal p- cesses within his brain in symbols of this experience and communicate them to others. This implies also the description of the world in which we live in as far as this world induces, through the sensory organs, activities in our brains. This symbolical representation of the world is, in itself, a real world to which our brain relates itself, in creating and in understanding it (Creutzfeldt, 1979). Therefore, any s- cific language influences thinking and broader aspects of behaviour, and this may explain some of the differences as found between language populations (Herder, 1772iHumboldt, 1836). In as much as the function of language is a symbolical rep- sentation of reality, it must be able to describe this reality, sufficiently and generally. In so far, the rules to which any XIII language is subjected, are dictated by the reality to which we relate ourself through language. These rules are general, and therefore general rules or a universal grammar may be generated, common to all languages (Chomsky, 1965).

The originality of this volume is to reveal to the reader the fascination of some unfamiliar sensory organs that are sometimes ignored and often misunderstood. These receptors have only recently been identified and their functional specificity is in some cases still a matter for discussion. The four classes of sensory organs considered here differ widely from one another in many respects. One might even say that the only thing they have in common is that they belong to cold-blooded vertebrates. These classes are: 1. the directionally sensitive lateral-line mechanoreceptors of fishes and amphi­ bians (Chapter 7); 2. the pseudobranchial organs of some teleosts, equipped with pressoreceptors and at least three other types of receptors (osmo- and chemoreceptors) (Chapter 8); 3. the infrared-sensitive pit organs of some snake families (Chapter 9) ; 4. the various kinds of electroreceptors found in several marine and freshwater fish families (Chapters 2 to 6). The first three classes of receptors mentioned above thus rate only one chapter each, whereas five chapters are devoted to the electroreceptors. Electroreception has aroused enormous interest among physiologists in specialties ranging from molecular biology to animal behavior. The resulting quantity of research and discussion fully justifies this disproportion. However, it cannot be denied that the contents of the volume must appear unbalanced and heterogeneous, yet it should not be perceived as a mere juxtaposition of particular and unrelated cases.