Abstract
THIS book takes its stand on the view that the terms which are used in thinking processes are constantly changing and developing, and in reality display none of that fixity which has sometimes been considered to be the main characteristic of the ‘concept’. It is suggested that this is due to the fact that the material of thought is always being influenced by affective or emotional responses. Head and Holmes have demonstrated that in “some way the essential organs of the thalami are the centre of consciousness for the affective side of sensation”. There are, as is well-known, innumerable paths of connexion between the thalami and the cortex. The authors hold that these “are return paths for reflex neural impulses from the cortex which excite relay cells in the thalami, and that these relay cells in turn send stimuli both to the essential thalamic organs and also to the same cortical areas from which the paths conveying the return impulse originated”. Hence it is argued that thought processes must be pictured as based upon a constantly circulating stream of neural impulse from cortex to thalami and from thalami to cortex.
The Neural Basis of Thought.
George G.
Campion
Sir
Grafton
Elliot-Smith
By. (International Library of Psychology, Philosophy and Scientific Method.) Pp. vi + 167. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd.; New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1934.) 9s. net.
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The Neural Basis of Thought . Nature 135, 895 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135895c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135895c0