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Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 42: Nov-Dec 1985 |
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Taking food from thought
M.D. was a stroke victim. The stroke had apparently damaged only a very specific portion of his brain, because his only memory impairment was for the names of fruits and vegetables! When shown the pictures of any fruits or vegetables, M.D. had great difficulty in naming them. However, when given words like pear and broccoli, he easily associated the names with the correct pictures. No other objects were affected. The implication is that the brain stores information like a Thesaurus; that is, like data with like data, all the fruit and vegetable files together. (Bower, B.; "Taking Food from Thought: Fruitful Entry to the Brain's Word Index, " Science News, 1 28:85, 1985. ) (In this connection, refer to the item "Brains Not Hardwired" in SF#36. )