Functional specificity in the human brain: A window into the functional architecture of the mind
This contribution is part of the special series of Inaugural Articles by members of the National Academy of Sciences elected in 2005.
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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National Academy of Sciences (U.S.)
2012
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/70925 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3853-7885 |
| _version_ | 1826207120871129088 |
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| author | Kanwisher, Nancy |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Kanwisher, Nancy |
| author_sort | Kanwisher, Nancy |
| collection | MIT |
| description | This contribution is part of the special series of Inaugural Articles by members of the National Academy of Sciences elected in 2005. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:44:27Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/70925 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:44:27Z |
| publishDate | 2012 |
| publisher | National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/709252022-09-28T15:50:07Z Functional specificity in the human brain: A window into the functional architecture of the mind Inaugural Article: Functional Specificity in the Human Brain: A Window into the Functional Architecture of the Mind Kanwisher, Nancy Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT Kanwisher, Nancy Kanwisher, Nancy This contribution is part of the special series of Inaugural Articles by members of the National Academy of Sciences elected in 2005. Is the human mind/brain composed of a set of highly specialized components, each carrying out a specific aspect of human cognition, or is it more of a general-purpose device, in which each component participates in a wide variety of cognitive processes? For nearly two centuries, proponents of specialized organs or modules of the mind and brain—from the phrenologists to Broca to Chomsky and Fodor—have jousted with the proponents of distributed cognitive and neural processing—from Flourens to Lashley to McClelland and Rumelhart. I argue here that research using functional MRI is beginning to answer this long-standing question with new clarity and precision by indicating that at least a few specific aspects of cognition are implemented in brain regions that are highly specialized for that process alone. Cortical regions have been identified that are specialized not only for basic sensory and motor processes but also for the high-level perceptual analysis of faces, places, bodies, visually presented words, and even for the very abstract cognitive function of thinking about another person’s thoughts. I further consider the as-yet unanswered questions of how much of the mind and brain are made up of these functionally specialized components and how they arise developmentally. National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant EY13455) Ellison Medical Foundation 2012-05-24T15:50:20Z 2012-05-24T15:50:20Z 2010-06 2010-04 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0027-8424 1091-6490 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/70925 Kanwisher, N. “Inaugural Article: Functional Specificity in the Human Brain: A Window into the Functional Architecture of the Mind.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107.25 (2010): 11163–11170. Web. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3853-7885 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1005062107 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) PNAS |
| spellingShingle | Kanwisher, Nancy Functional specificity in the human brain: A window into the functional architecture of the mind |
| title | Functional specificity in the human brain: A window into the functional architecture of the mind |
| title_full | Functional specificity in the human brain: A window into the functional architecture of the mind |
| title_fullStr | Functional specificity in the human brain: A window into the functional architecture of the mind |
| title_full_unstemmed | Functional specificity in the human brain: A window into the functional architecture of the mind |
| title_short | Functional specificity in the human brain: A window into the functional architecture of the mind |
| title_sort | functional specificity in the human brain a window into the functional architecture of the mind |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/70925 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3853-7885 |
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