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In Search of Psyche
Abstract
To a beginner in science back in the mid-1980s, it seemed that there could be no more challenging problem at which to aim—as a long-term, ultimate goal kind of thing—than that of consciousness and the mind-brain relation, more acceptably expressed in those days as the problem of the “neural correlates of conscious experience.” A naive beginner, of course, could hardly expect to approach a final solution, but it is always reassuring to feel that one’s efforts are at least aimed in the general direction of something that might be of ultimate importance. Meantime, as a “brain researcher,” one could find plenty of lesser but entirely respectable and more researchable corollary problems along the way, such as perception, learning, and memory.
... In our present school system, the attention given to the minor hemisphere of the brain is minimal compared with training lavished on the left, or major hemisphere." (Sperry, 1975) Educational institutions have placed a great premium on the verbal/numerical categories and have systematically eliminated those experiences that would assist young children's development of visualization, imagination and/or sensory/perceptual abilities. The over-analytic models so often presented to children in their textbooks emphasize linear thought processes and discourage intuitivity, analogical, and metaphorical thinking. ...
Early life events can exert a powerful influence on both the pattern of brain architecture and behavioral development. The paper examines the nature of nervous system plasticity, the nature of functional connectivities in the nervous system, and the application of connectography to better understand the concept of a functional neurology that can shed light on approaches to instruction in preschool and primary education. The paper also examines the genetic underpinnings of brain development such as synaptogenesis,plasticity, and critical periods as they relate to numerosity, language and perceptual development. Dis-cussed is how the child’s environment in school and home interact with and modify the structures andfunctions of the developing brain. The role of experience for the child is to both maintain and expandthe child’s early wiring diagram necessary for effective cognitive as well as neurological development beyond early childhood.
... In our present school system, the attention given to the minor hemisphere of the brain is minimal compared with training lavished on the left, or major hemisphere." (Sperry, 1975) Educational institutions have placed a great premium on the verbal/numerical categories and have systematically eliminated those experiences that would assist young children's development of visualization, imagination and/or sensory/perceptual abilities. The over-analytic models so often presented to children in their textbooks emphasize linear thought processes and discourage intuitivity, analogical, and metaphorical thinking. ...
Early life events can exert a powerful influence on both the pattern of brain architecture and behavioral development. The paper examines the nature of nervous system plasticity, the nature of functional connectivities in the nervous system, and the application of connectography to better understand the concept of a functional neurology that can shed light on approaches to instruction in preschool and primary education. The paper also examines the genetic underpinnings of brain development such as synaptogenesis, plasticity, and critical periods as they relate to numerosity, language and perceptual development. Discussed is how the child's environment in school and home interact with and modify the structures and functions of the developing brain. The role of experience for the child is to both maintain and expand the child's early wiring diagram necessary for effective cognitive as well as neurological development beyond early childhood.
... In fact, many observers point to a history in which the neurosciences and cognitive science are thoroughly intertwined (see, e.g., Gardner, 1985, pp. 22– 23; Posner & DiGirolamo, 2000; Sperry, 1975). Furthermore, there are many indicators (both intuitive and empirical) that point to the increased prevalence of this hybrid field within psychology. ...
Past studies investigating trends in psychology have reported some conflicting and surprising results. This article critiques and reevaluates these reports, with a particular focus on those related to the cognitive revolution and the place of neuroscience in psychology. Based on a wide variety of indicators, the following trends are demonstrated: (a) Although cognitive psychology has grown in importance, it has not come to dominate psychology; (b) contrary to prior findings, attention to neuroscience in psychology has grown in a pattern similar to that of cognitive psychology; and (c) there are many signs that cognitive neuroscience is in the process of emergence. Trends are interpreted in light of the argument that psychology is a disunified discipline allowing for many different interests, schools, and approaches. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
... They concluded that neuroscience was pre-paradigmatic with research largely concentrated in exploratory and experimental studies. They believe that this is illustrated by the swing back and forth between plasticity and connectionist theories and between local and global theories of brain structure and function (see Sperry, 1974). Contrary to their analysis however, I believe that exploratory and experimental methods, complemented by continuous technological innovations and accompanied by vigorous competition between well-defined and testable alternative theories is the hallmark of dynamic science rather than a mature science that is theoretically moribund. ...
Presents a critique of contemporary research which uses the notion of a mental image as a theoretical construct to describe 1 form of memory representation. It is argued that an adequate characterization of "what one knows" requires the use of abstract mental structures to which there is no conscious access and which are essentially conceptual and propositional, rather than sensory or pictorial, in nature. Such representations are more accurately referred to as symbolic descriptions than as images in the usual sense. Implications of using an imagery vocabulary are examined, and it is argued that the picture metaphor underlying recent theoretical discussions is seriously misleading, especially as it suggests that the image is an entity to be perceived. The relative merits of several alternative modes of representation (propositions, data structures, and procedures) are discussed. A more speculative discussion of the nature of the representation which may be involved when people "use" visual images is also presented. (65 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Attempts to clarify a hypothesis of consciousness in which the phenomena of subjective experience are conceived to exert a direct causal influence on brain activity. Response is made to some questions posed by D. Bindra (see PA, Vol. 45:Issue 3) that arose from a recent statement by Sperry of the concept. The aim is to clarify where possible with material that supplements rather than repeats previous accounts, and the hypothesis is compared with other existing theories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The central concepts concerning consciousness that I shall try to defend have already been presented in some detail (Sperry, 1952, 1964, 1965). Accordingly, I shall review them only in brief outline, devoting the bulk of the discussion to various peripheral aspects and implications that previously have had less emphasis. At the outset let me make it clear that when I refer to consciousness I mean that kind of experience that is lost when one faints or sinks into a coma. It is the subjective experience that is lacking during dreamless sleep, that may be obliterated by a blow on the head, by anoxia, or by pressure on the inner walls of the third ventricle during brain surgery. On the positive side we can include as conscious events the various sensations elicitable by a local electric current applied to the unanesthetized brain, or the pain of a phantom amputated limb, as well as most of our waking subjective experience, including self-consciousness.
Investigated adaptation in an inverted visual field. An eight day experiment was conducted on one S. When lenses inverting the visual field were not worn, the eyes were blind folded. The experience was carefully recorded everyday. Six days of the experiment are reported wherein from a feeling of abnormal position of the body, the S learnt to adjust to movement, localization of touch and sound. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Following prolonged training on a variety of visual discrimination problems, cats were carried through an operative procedure involving the implantation of thin mica plates throughout the visual areas of the cerebral cortex and underlying white matter. Subsequent retesting on visual discriminations showed no distortions of the type predictable from a field hypothesis of cortical function, but rather "scotomata of varying size and shape correlated with the location, size and shape of the lesions."
Using Sphaeroides spengleri (Bloch), the southern swell-fish, visual inversion of one eye was secured by 180° surgical rotation. The other eye was blinded. Visual inversion was accompanied by forced circling movements, which survived bilateral ablation of the forebrain, the cerebellum, or the inferior lobes of the infundibulum. Circling was not eliminated by bilateral labyrinthectomy and severance of the extraocular muscles, but was abolished if the eye was returned to its normal orientation, and if the optic lobe of the rotated eye was removed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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