speaks, the answer may take several forms. He may name a word-sign which he sees, or repeat a word sound which he hears, or tell the words he has written, or finally, he may speak a word simply from the habit of speaking it—from the tendency of his speech-apparatus to operate as it has operated before. Now we ordinarily generalize this diversity in the case in which the man 'thinks' the word merely without speaking it, by saying that the word is 'in his mind,' internal, intérieur; but the question is: What is in his mind?—the printed word (visual image), the spoken word (auditory), the written word (hand-motor), the articulate word (speech-motor)—is it all of these? Is it any of them?
If we agree to call the motor center for speech, the 'intrinsic' source of stimulation to the organs of speech, and, on the other hand, to call the other centers pointed out, 'extrinsic,' the question now current runs: Are these extrinsic centers capable, each for itself, of arousing the speech center; or does one of them, the center for sensations and memories of actual movement, the 'kinaesthetic' word-center, always stand between the motor seat and the other sensory centers? Or, put psychologically, do we, when we remember words and speak them, always recall them in terms of the sensations of movement involved in speaking or writing them; or is it possible to speak simply from remembering the visual form of the word or its sound? Is the kinaesthetic center intrinsic or extrinsic? The view that verbal memories are always motor (kinaesthetic) is associated with the name of Strieker.[1] Recent results have refuted Strieker. A variety of facts have been adduced to show that the function of speech is not dependent in all cases upon the possibility of reinstating motor experiences. Many of these facts are already common property; but a few of the latest points on this side of the discussion are these: (1) Cases are cited of verbal hallucination, in which the patient hears two (or more) voices, one of which he takes to be his
- ↑ Strieker, Ueber die Bewegungsvorstellungen, Ueber die Association der Vorstellungen, Ueber die Sprachvorstellungen, Langage et Musique. See also G. E. Müller, Grundlegung der Psychophysik.
