Higher Cortical Functions in Man
This full-length translation of Professor Luria's book introduces to the English speaking world a major document in neuropsychology, summarizing Professor Luria's earlier contributions to that area for nearly a third of a century. It is a monumental cont
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PREFACES TO THE ENGLISH EDITION BY
HANS-LUKAS TEUBER and KARL H. PRIBRAM
AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM THE RUSSIAN
by BASIL HAIGH
HIGHER CORTICAL FUNCTIONS IN MAN ALEKSANDR ROMANOVICH LURIA
BASIC BOOKS, INC., PUBLISHERS CONSULTANTS BUREAU
New York 1966
First Printing-March 1966 Second Printing-May 1967 Third Printing-September 1970 Fourth Printing-May 1973
The original Russian text was published by Moscow University Press in 1962.
AJIEKCAH.ll.P POMAHOBHtI JIYPI151 BblCWHE KOPKOBblE 4»YHKUHH '1EJlOBEKA
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 65-11340 SBN 306-10740-6
ISBN-13: 978-1-4684-7743-6 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4684-7741-2 DOl: 10.1007/978-1-4684-7741-2
© 1966 Consuliants Bureau Enterprises, Inc., and Basic Books, Inc.
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1966m
All rights reserued. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publishers. Manufactured in the United States of America.
Drawing by Lec,;tardo da Vinci illustrating the Renaissance view of the structure of the brain and of the three cerebral ventricles
Preface This full-length translation of Professor Luria's book introduces to the Englishspeaking world a major document in neuropsychology, summarizing Professor Luria's earlier contributions to that area for nearly a third of a century. It is a monumental contribution. Nothing of this scope exists in the Western literature of this field, with the possible exception of Ajuriaguerra and Hecaen's book (in French) on the cerebral cortex. Professor Luria's book thus marks a further and decisive step toward the eventual coalescence of neurology and psychology, a goal to which only a few laboratories in the East and West have been devoted over the last decades. The book is unique in its organization. The first half deals with observations and interpretations concerning the major syndromes of man's left cerebral hemisphere: those grievous distortions of higher functions traditionally described as aphasia, agnosia, and apraxia. There is also a detailed and brilliant analysis of the syndrome of massive frontal-lobe involvement. The entire second half of the book is given over to a painstaking description of Professor Luria's tests, many of them introduced by himself, and set out in such detail that anyone could repeat them and thus verify Professor Luria's interpretations. The two halves of the book are equally challenging and original. In the first, more theoretical, section, Professor Luria gives an account of the major syndromes in terms that reject with the same force the traditionallocalizationist view-the notion of discrete centers for different aspects of language, of calculation or writing-and the opposite view of holistic function of the cerebral hemisphere, a view clearly incompatible with clinical and experimental fact. In a similar way, Professor Luria's re-analysis of agnosia and apraxia reveals inadequacies of these clinical shorthand expressions; he points out that more elementary sensory and motor changes shade into the alleged
