harnad@clarity.Princeton.EDU (Stevan Harnad) (09/18/90)
Below is the abstract of a book that will be accorded multiple book
review in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international,
interdisciplinary journal that provides Open Peer Commentary on
important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and
cognitive sciences. Commentators must be current BBS Associates or
nominated by a current BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator
on this book, to suggest other appropriate commentators, or for
information about how to become a BBS Associate, please send email to:
harnad@clarity.princeton.edu or harnad@pucc.bitnet or write to:
BBS, 20 Nassau Street, #240, Princeton NJ 08542 [tel: 609-921-7771]
To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give some
indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring your
areas of expertise to bear if you are selected as a commentator.
____________________________________________________________________
BBS Multiple Book Review of:
FROM NEUROPSYCHOLOGY TO MENTAL STRUCTURE
Tim Shallice
MRC Applied Psychology Unit
Cambridge, UK
ABSTRACT: Studies of the effects of brain lesions on human behavior are
now cited more widely than ever, yet there is no agreement on which
neuropsychological findings are relevant to our understanding of normal
function. Despite the range of artefacts to which inferences from
neuropsychological studies are potentially subject -- e.g., resource
differences between tasks, premorbid individual differences and
reorganisation of function -- they are corroborated by similar findings
in studies of normal cognition (short-term memory, reading, writing,
the relation between input and output systems and visual perception).
The functional dissociations found in neuropsychological studies suggest
that not only are input systems organized modularly, but so are central systems.
This conclusion is supported by considering impairments of knowledge,
visual attention, supervisory functions, memory and consciousness.