prolong themselves in movements of articulation; a tendency which assuredly does not escape, as a rule, the control of the will, perhaps even implies a rudimentary discrimination, and expresses itself, in the normal state, by an internal repetition of the striking features of the words that are heard. Now our motor diagram is nothing else.
Considering this hypothesis more closely, we shall perhaps find in it the psychological explanation, which we were just now seeking, of certain forms of word deafness. A few cases of word deafness are known where there was a complete survival of acoustic memory. The patient had retained, unimpaired, both the auditive memory of words and the sense of hearing; yet he recognized no word that was said to him.[1] A subcortical lesion is here supposed, which prevents the acoustic impressions from going to join the verbal auditory images in the cortical centres where they are supposed to be deposited. But, in the first place, the question is whether the brain can store up images. And, secondly, even if it were proved that there is some lesion in the paths that the acoustic impressions have to follow, we should still be compelled to seek a psychological interpretation of the final
- ↑ See, in particular: P. Sérieux, Sur un cas de surdité verbale pure (Revue de Médecine, 1893, p. 733 et seq.); Lichtheim, loc. cit., p. 461; and Arnaud, Contrib. à l'étude de la surdité verbale (2e article), Arch. de Neurologie, 1886, p. 366.
