Richard Passingham, What Is Special about the Human Brain? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), xii + 269 Pps. $59.50 and John R. Anderson, How Can the Human Mind Occur in the Physical Universe? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), viii + 290 Pps., $42.95.
Attempts to delineate the difference between humans and other primates seem to be never ending. Other primates possess numerous common characteristics with humans. For example, A comparison between this and the human genome shows that 98.77% of DNA base pairs of humans and chimpanzees are the same. We are both bipedaloid. Yet, the mental gap between mankind and ape is immense. What is it that humans have that other primates do not? The two books currently under review take two different approaches to this question, and thereby offer two different – though complimentary – answers.
Professor Passingham was awarded a B.A in Psychology and Philosophy at the University of Oxford (1966), and an M.Sc in Abnormal Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, London (1967). He did his Ph.D. in London under the supervision of Dr. George Ettlinger (1967-1970). In 1976 he was appointed to a University Lectureship in the Department of Experimental Psychology at Oxford, and has been an Honorary Principal at the Wellcome Centre for Neuroimaging (London) since 1994.
His book is a search for the changes in the brain that can account for the gap between humans and other primates. Chapter one begins this search by analyzing the difference(s) between the human brain and that of chimpanzees, our nearest living relatives. Passingham argues that language is the prime separation between humans and other primates. Not only do we speak outwardly, but we humans also have ‘inner’ speech, which often occurs automatically and without awareness; only humans, he contends, can do such (9). Brain size, from which much specialization derives, is the most critical difference regarding the brain of humans and other primates, he notes in chapter two. Chapters three through nine expand on the specialized functions that the larger brain size of humans afford them, which, e.g., allow us to adapt to any environment. In so doing, he reviews studies in which functional brain imaging has been used to study the brain mechanisms that are involved in perception, manual skill (chapter four), language (chapter five), planning (chapter seven), reasoning (chapter eight), and social cognition (chapter nine).
He highlights that this expansion of size affords humans the capacity not only for utterance of words, but also the ability to understand other’s thoughts through words. As a result of the development of language, the human frontal cortex has been reorganized insomuch as the left hemisphere is for phonological, semantic, and grammar specialization, whereas the right hemisphere is for visual processes (137 –139). Other primates have no such differentiation between hemispheres. We humans are taught in language, and not only through mimicry, allowing for rapid dissemination of culture (191), which is also serves to distinguish us, he contends. In sum, Passingham’s book is written in a lively style, and the book is an exciting exploration to understand those things that make humans unique, and specialists as well as lay readers will find much to appreciate in it.
John R. Anderson is the author of the second book currently under review. He is the R.K. Mellon University Professor of Psychology and Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Anderson has been recognized as a leader in the field of cognitive science by a number of awards, including the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Scientific Career Award, and the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for Cognitive Science. His book was inspired by the last lecture given by one of the pioneers of cognitive science, Allen Newell. In that lecture, Newell describes what, for him, is the pivotal question of scientific inquiry – i.e. how the human mind can occur in the physical universe – and Anderson highlights possible answers to that question in this text that have emerged since Newell’s death.
Chapter one explains what cognitive architecture is, how the concept of it came to be, and what the ‘failed’ alternatives to it were. For example, prior to the idea of cognitive architecture, a scientist interested in cognition could either focus on structure – and thereby get lost in the details of the brain – or focus on function – and thereby get lost in the details of human behavior. However, with the cognitive architecture concept – which Anderson therein defines as the specification of the structure of the brain at a level of abstraction that explains how it achieves the function of the mind (7) – cognitive scientists can proverbially have their cake and eat it too, because with this concept, scientists are able to understand the relationship between the two, rather than focusing on each individually. He notes that classic information-processing psychological accounts of the mind, eliminative connectionism, and rational analysis of how the brain produces the mind, all fail in their distinct ways (8–18).
The second chapter elaborates on the cognitive modules integrated by the central nervous system, and how these modules give rise to the human mind. Much of the third chapter regards how memory is allocated with the brain. Notably, it begins by recounting how philosophers since Augustine have contended that to be human is, in essence, bound up with the capacity for memory, as memory is critical for self-identity (in many ways, we are what we remember). Chapter four builds on the third, noting that it is not enough just to retrieve information from memory, one must also be able to use it appropriately, as the context in question warrants. Cognitive reflexes are integrated with deliberative processes to yield adaptive control of thought (135). Anderson takes a trip into algebra in chapter five so as to flesh out his model more aptly because he claims that it is the prime example of intellectual functioning that separates humans from other primates.
I must be forthright: I like Anderson’s book, and think it to be a quality read; however, in reflection I almost think I was misled, for upon first approaching the title, I thought that it surely would reference the mind-body problem. But this it does not do. Instead, it claims that the mind-body problem is a philosophical issue, so it therefore focuses upon the scientific side of the mind. With this quasi-reservation aside, I nevertheless recommend this title for those interested in cognitive science, and/or psychology.
In consideration of these two titles together, it is clear that discussions of human significance and distinction are not going to be resolved any time soon. Though not resolved, the debate is lively and interesting. May it continue!
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA.