Ursula Justice
Greenfield Essay Ch 1
In Greenfield Ch. 1, see the details of the historical attempts to "isolate" parts of the brain as
specific parts in control (such as movement, thinking, personality).
How does Dr. Greenfield explain why these views are inaccurate?
p. 8-9 Franz Gall and the skull
Franz Gall created what was eventually called Phrenology. This was a way to
“scientifically” identify personality traits by bumps, markings, and shapes of skulls. The issue
with this is that obviously the shape of a skull can not only be altered by damage, but it has
nothing to do with the personality. Personalities do not lay in your bones. The larger issue with
this which the book left out is how it was used in criminology, in a systematically racist way
where certain races of people with defined skull and facial features were demonized. Even worse
yet where the book left out again was that Hitler used Phrenology as his scientific reasoning that
the white race was superior.
p. 10 Broca's area
Broca’s area is about a specific “scientific” case. There was a patient whose name was
Leborgne, but was called “Tan”, because that was the only word he was able to say. Due to
understandings of the flawed phrenology “science”, it was believed that his brain was damaged
in a specific part of his brain. Once Leborgne passed away, his brain was examined and it was
found that the phrenology was entirely wrong. The book claims that phrenology lost scientific
ground after this situation.
p. 10-11 Wernicke’s aphasia
Carl Wernicke piggy backed off of the “Tan” research. His studies also had to do with
patients who suffered speech issues, but his patients were different in the regard that his could
make many sounds, but it was spoken as “gibberish”. In an unintentional hit to further
discrediting phrenology, he discovered that his patients had brain damage in different areas than
“Tan” did, showing that multiple parts of the brain were involved with speech and that there
were not specific parts of the brain that exclusively deal with one area of the person.
p. 11-12 Hughlings-Jackson
John Hughlings-Jackson believed in a hierarchy of brain operations. He believed that
there were sophisticated parts of our brain that kept “primitive” drives in check. This is flawed in
the sense that as the book pointed out, there is no one mini brain making executive choices for
behavior.
p. 12-13 MacLean’s hierarchy
Paul Maclean had a theory of layered brain function as well, but this was less
philosophical and more like phrenology in a sense that these areas of function had a home in
parts of the brain. The brain stem was classified as the primitive reptilian, which had the duty of
“instinctive behavior”. The old mammalian was the middle of the brain and controlled specific
behavior. The new mammalian was the outer layer of the brain, and it controlled rational
thought. The biggest flaw with this theory is that he created the formula, to fit the answer. The
book talks about how people were acting at political protests, and how this theory talks about
group think behavior. This theory however skips factual scientific evidence of any part of the
brain housing specific group behavior.
Greenfield explains that the issues with theories that attempt to isolate specific traits to parts of
the brain, is that though each part of the brain is responsible for something, there is a lot of
overlap with everything. Each part of the brain does a part of a overall job, multiple parts of the
brain communicate with each other to complete the task. On page 29 a great example of how
four different parts of the brain work together to see words, read words, speak words and
generate verbs. Phrenology was harmful, inaccurate, and thanks to science eradicated.