CHAPTER XI 



LOCALIZATION OF THE LEARNING PRO- 

 CESS IN THE CEREBRAL CORTEX 

 OF THE RAT 



The ability to learn by experience necessarily implies the 

 development^ somewhere in the brain^ of a something which can 

 act not only as a receptive organ for impressions of the senses 

 and a means for securing that their influence will find expres- 

 sion in modifying behavior^ but also serve in a sense as a 

 recording apparatus for storing such impressions^ so that 

 they may be revived in memory at some future time in associa- 

 tion with other impressions received simultaneously^ the 

 state of consciousness they evoked^ and the response they 

 called forth. 



— G. Elliot Smith 



THE problem of cerebral function was ap- 

 proached by Franz and Lashley with a defi- 

 nite system of preconceptions based on their 

 former experience with the plasticity and inconstancy 

 of cortical activity in contrast with the rigid mosaic 

 schemes of cortical localization of function hitherto so 

 popular. I have approached the problem with a dif- 

 ferent set of preconceptions based on very dissimilar 

 experience. It would therefore not be surprising if we 

 were inclined to evaluate the factual evidence some- 

 what differently, as indeed is actually the case. Our 

 specific conclusions will, however, be found to be not 

 far apart. 



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