Neuroprychologia, 1976. Vol. 14, pp. 145 to 146. Permmon Press. Printed in England.

BOOK REVIEWS

The Shattered Mind: The Person After Brain Damage. How- GARDNER, Knopf. New York. 1975.481 pp. $10.00.

Tw PROBLEM that I have with The Shattered Mind by Howard Gardner is that it is such a good popularization one suspects it may have started out as a serious work that somewhere along the way got derailed. As a popularization, this modest, intelligent and readable review of some recent work in neuropsychology is perhaps the best of its type available. Though there is a disproportionate emphasis on the work of his Boston colleagues, Gardner’s grasp of the major issues in the field and his knowledge of the historical trends behind these issues is certainly adequate to the task (though really, Howard, Charles Bastian and Anton Pick stick out like a sore thumb!).

In the section on aphasia the stress is on well-studied single cases. Gardner does his best, and that is quite good indeed, to make intelligible a complex and intimidating subject. The descriptions of aphasic patients are, moreover, permeated by an empathic questioning of the type, “What is going on in this man’s mind?” which, if a bit wearisome after a while to the neurologist, will no doubt leave a deep impression on the average reader. Yet for the specialist this preoccupation with the ‘personal’ side to an aphasia, like the occasional dramatizations of certain basic problems and the wordy though literate style, however mercifully restrained, does have the unsettling tendency to come to the fore just when something substantive is required.

As to the serious side of this work, while the book does not present new interpretations or data, there are two important concepts which serve to guide most of the discussion. Firstly, Gardner makes it clear that for heuristic reasons his ‘present’ sympathies lie with the “localizationist” school. Yet apart from the omni- present Kurt Goldstein (to Gardner, a cryptolocaliser) the holistic approach is so weakly, and at times derisively, represented that it never has a chance. Apparently Gardner does not realize, or at least avoids discussion of the fact, that his professed structuralism is fundamentally inconsistent with localization theory. A second, one might say thematic, idea is that pathology is not just a meaningless aberration of the normal but has close links to normal function. This is a vital question in neuropsychological research that deserves more careful scrutiny than it receives in Gardner’s hands. In fact, the pathological is not just linked to the normal but is a prefiguration of normal function. One can speak of the pathological when there is an unravelling of the normal, and of the normal when the pathological achieves a kind of adequacy. However this point of view, namely that there is an inner bond between normal and pathological function, is basically tied to a theory of destructuration or regression, and to this the author has already declared his antagonism.

Apart from the discussion of aphasia, there are competent if routine chapters on disorders of reading and object recognition, loss of memory, the Gerstmann syndrome, dementia and “split-brain” work. The chapter on the pathology of art is quite good, owing in no small part to a preview of Richard Jung’s data on artists with brain lesion. In this chapter, however, Gardner misses a tie opportunity to explore the effects of brain lesion on creativity, which is really the central question in such cases. The concluding chapter on “the matter of mind”, though devoted in the main to a consideration of (auto)biographical accounts of brain injury, does call attention to the relevance of neuropsychological data to mind-body theory, and for the non-specialist interested in such matters this book provides an excellent starting point.

JASON W. BROWN

Textes pour une Psycholinguistique. Presentdpar J. MEHLER et G. Norzar. Mouton. La Haye, 1974. 678 pp. 68 F.

LA LECNR~ de la t&s interessante introduction des redactems de ce recueil, J. Mehler et G. Nob&, fait parfaitement comprendre les raisons qui leur ont dict6 le choix des articles.

Darts ce chapitre intitult “Vets un modele psycholinguistique du locuteur”, ils tracent en quelques pages 1’6volution de la psycholinguistique depuis les arm& cinquante, date a laquelle le terme se substitue a celui de psychologie du langage.

Dans une premi&e phase, les concepts de la theorie de l’information constituent une des r6ferences essentielles dune psycholinguistique qui depend par ailleurs Ws dtroitement de la linguistique structurale tandis que le comportement verbal est interpret6 selon des mod&s d’apprentissage. Pure phase de descrip- tion, cette p&ode se r6vele peu f&conde sur le plan de l’interpretation. Elle se termine lorsque paraissent les premiers travaux de Chomsky, le modile de la grammaire gtnerative remplace dbs lors celui de la linguistique structurale.

145

146 BOOK &MEWS

Au neopositivisme de la p&iode prectdente, succtde alors une demarche hypothetico-deductive selon laquelle est reconnue le droit d’inventer des niveaux linguistiques abstraits ii la settle condition que la theorie comporte une valeur explicative. Les etudes psycholinguistiques cherchent a assurer la realitt psychologique non seulement du modele de performance mais aussi du modele de competence.

Mehler et Noizet d&agent tres nettement comment P partir de cette distinction entre modele de com- petence et modele de performance, la psycholmguistique trouve son autonomie, elle se fixe pour t&he d’etudier la performance pour elle-meme, en precisant les speciications et les contraintes qu’impose le fonctionnement psychologique sur le locuteur reel. Mais elle se trouvait ainsi lib de mat&e contraignante B la gramma& generative puisqu’elle Ctait conduite par n&essite B etendre et a valider le modele retenu. Quelles que soient les modifications qu’ait subies la theotie depuis sa presentation initiale, l’essentiel de la revolution Chomskierme semble bien Btre conservb: position rationnaliste et nativiste, distinction entre un locuteur ideal et un locuteur reel, c&tivite du langage.

Mais actuellement, parait peu a peu s’ebaucher une troisieme psycholmguistique, qui en retenant ces acquis de la th&orie, s’efforce de construim de veritables mod&s de performances qui tiennent compte de leurs divers aspects et qui leur sont sptkiiques. 11 convient ainsi de d&ire les strategies que le sujet utilise dans chacune de ces activites: production, reception, ou mise en memoire; de la, doit naltre une psychologie lmguistique .s’int&rant dans la psychologie cognitive en meme temps que retrouvant des contacts avec la pens& biologique.

Si les criteres qui ont preside au choix des textes retenus d&coulent ainsi de cet expose introductif. Mehler et Noimt cependant reconnaissent eux m*mes que d’autres raisons les ont guid&s, en particulier l’importance theOrique des rapports entre syntaxe et semantique, les aspects lexicaux et entin l’orlginalite des techniques utilii.

Les articles sont pr&sentes selon 6 sections dont nous donnons les titre de regroupement: 1. Lc langage: Trois perspectives th&+iques (E. H. Lemreberg, N. Chomsky; J. J. Katz). 2. Aspectsphonologiques (R. Jakobson, C. G. M. Fant et M. Halle; F. S. Cooper, P. C. Delattre, A. M.

Libermann, J. M. Borst et L. J. Get&man; G. A. Miller et P. E. Nicely). 3. Perception etproduction a?~ langage (M. Halle et K. N. Stevens; H. B. Savin; T. G. Bever, J. R. Lackner

et R. Kirk; J. Mehler, T. G. Bever et P. Carey; A. J. Yates). 4. Processus de coduge linguistique (G. A. Miller; V. H. Yngve, J. Mehler et T. G. Bever; S. Glucksberg

et J. H. Danks; S. Fiienbaum). 5. Comprkhension des phrases (P. B. Gough; J. A. Fodor et M. Garrett; J. A. Fodor, M. Garrett et

T. G. Bever; P. W. Carey, J. Mehler et T. G. Bever; H. H. Clark). 6. Aspects lexicuux (G. A. Miller, M. R. Quillian). G&e ZI ce choix des textes, le lecteur pourra prendre commodement connaissance du passe recent et

des tendances actuelles de la psycholinguistique. Signalons en terminant l’excellence des traductions dues a Madame Noizet.

H. H~CAEN

MIereehemkal Analysis of Nervous Tissue. N. N. OSBORNE. Pergamon Press, 1974, pp. 225. f8

IN THE PIONEER years of neurochemistry, homogenization of the whole brain and analysis of its content was the technique generally employed. Although this approach is still providing basic knowledge, the trend is now to scale down all the analytical procedures. In many cases, such progresses have been met that it is already feasible to determine with acceptable accuracy the level of selected chemicals in only a few nervous cells. Indeed such sensitive analytical methods must be associated with precise and reproducible techniques for the dissection, the sampling and the handling of the tissue samples: such methods have begun to appear. It is therefore clear that one of the main technical gaps between neurochemistry and neurophysiology, i.e. the difference in the scales of the respective experimental models is being progressively filled up.

The book by N. N. OSBORNE is therefore appearing at a time when more and more neurochemists are trying to apply this micromethodology. It constitutes, by one of the best specialists in the field, a most useful “mini-handbook”. After describing general procedures for the isolation of nervous tissue and the special instrumentation for dissection and analysis, the analytical methods for various classes of compounds are given. The latters include amines and aminoacids (as dansyl derivatives), phospholipids and protein (by microelectrophoresis).

The main interest (but also the limitation) of this monograph is to describe with enough details to be easily reproduced (numerous illustrations am included) the methods which have been personally experienced by the authors. The limitation is that a number of other currently available micromethods (like the radio- enzymatic assays or the gas-chromatography for the analysis of amines) are not included.

However, the qualities and timeliness of this monograph will undoubtedly make it a useful tool for neurochemists.

J. C. SCHWARTZ