Harry Whitaker - Böcker

No books have been published on the practice of neuroscience in the eighteenth century, a time of transition and discovery in science and medicine. This volume explores neuroscience and reviews developments in anatomy, physiology, and medicine in the era some call the Age of Reason, and others the Enlightenment. Topics include how neuroscience adopted electricity as the nerve force, how disorders such as aphasia and hysteria were treated, Mesmerism, and more.

No books have been published on the practice of neuroscience in the eighteenth century, a time of transition and discovery in science and medicine. This volume explores neuroscience and reviews developments in anatomy, physiology, and medicine in the era some call the Age of Reason, and others the Enlightenment. Topics include how neuroscience adopted electricity as the nerve force, how disorders such as aphasia and hysteria were treated, Mesmerism, and more.

Contemporary Reviews in Neuropsychology arrays the most current research on hemispheric specialization of the brain. Special attention is given to the functioning of the right hemisphere in the processing of spatial and sequential information. Among the topics discussed are the nature of hemisphere asymmetries, lexical processing, spatial memory, and humor and the right hemisphere.

In summary, considerable controversy and research have been generated from the automatic/effortful distinction. Hasher and Zacks (1979) initially stated that all manipulations (e. g. , practice, individual differences such as age, orienting instructions) must produce null effects in order to satisfy the criteria that a process is "automatic. " However, Zacks et al. (1984) have more recently noted that automatic processes may range in degree from relative insensitivity to task and subject variables (e. g. , frequency processing) to those that are more vulnera- ble to disruptive effects (e. g. , temporal processing). A review of the literature reveals that individuals are sensitive to frequency information even if manipUla- tions alter the slope of the judgments. Perhaps the application of dual-task metho- dology to the measurement of capacity demands will be useful in classifying processes along an attentional continuum. Moreover, there has been a tendency to dichotomize automatic/effortful processes rather than to characterize them as ranging from low to high attentional demands.Recent evidence (Maki & Ostby, 1987) suggests that attention may be important only in the initial (early) stages of processing frequency information. Therefore, a major difference that may emerge between automatic and effortful processing could be the degree of sus- tained attention required from individuals. In the following section, we review the findings obtained in the application of the automatic/effortful framework to the elderly and neurological/psychiatric populations.

Phonological Processes and Brain Mechanisms reviews selective neurolinguistic research relating brain structures to phonology. The studies in the volume report on a number of timely and important topics, such as a neuronal model for processing segmental phonology, the role of the thalamus and basal ganglia in language processing, and oral reading in dyslexia. Increasingly, phonology is considered a cognitive module whose brain correlates may be independently investigated. Given the modular nature of the phonological system and its direct linkage with peripheral components of the nervous system, research on phonology and the brain will undoubtedly flourish in the future. The chapters in this volume give substance to this future.

Reading is cne of the highest farns of aa;ru:i. red oogni ti ve func- tioos. It cares as no sw:prise, therefore, that the study of reeding has attracted nmerous investigators who, in spite of their diverse background, have been notivated by cne ultimate goal --to understand how we read and how we learn to reed. A s\bstantial prQIX)rticn of these investigators have attenpted to gain knowled~ about the neuro- p:;ychological processes that 1mderlie the reading process by studying individuals who fail to acquire reading skill (developtental dyslexia) and individuals wOO aa;IUire a reading deficit as a result of brain pathology (alexia~ aa;IUired dyslexia). OVer the years, these two sources, using different tedmiqll3S and nethods, have yielded a good deal of infonration. Unfortunately, the enpirical findings that have been c:btained under these two circunstances have, to a lar~ extent, failed to influence the other. Bringing these two approaches (developtental dyslexia and aCXIUired alexia) t~ther, therefore, remains a top priority.With a view towards bringing these two disciplines together, the Scientific Affairs Divisioo of the North Atlantic Treaty Organi- zation (NAro) cwarded us a grant to ccnduct an Advanced Stuly Institute (ASI) in Maratea, Italy, from Octc:ber 10-22, 1982. '!his volure is the result of that Institute. The book is divided into four parts: developtental reading and spelling disorders, acquired alexia, diagnosis and reI'lEdiation, and research :inplications.

Chapters on slavery and the self and the development of an understanding of Dualism bring this examination up to date on the latest 21st century work in the field. At the heart of this book is the matter of how we define the problem of consciousness itself: has there been any progress in our understanding of the working of mind and brain?