ABSTRACT
The functional significance of architectonic subdivision was the central issue of the monograph, Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence, and the conclusions of that study influenced the direction of K. S. Lashley's research and thinking for the rest of his life. This chapter begins with the view of the cortex that prevailed in 1929, at the time Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence was published. The first principle was the concept of sensory areas of the cortex. Sensory pathways had been traced to the neocortex from the eye, the ear, and the spinal cord, using the Marchi method for tracing degenerated fibers or the Golgi method for staining normal cell bodies, dendrites, and axons. The general view was that a conscious sensation was the result of impulses reaching the sensory areas. The traditional distinction between sensory and association cortex was not designed with a view toward explaining individual differences or species differences.
