The Neural Control of Vision

F. Extrastriate Cortical Areas

One of the earliest ideas about the specificity of brain areas comes from the work of Francis Gall, the father of phrenology. He postulated not only that different brain areas perform different jobs, but that qualities in which an individual excels are a product of a greater than average amount of brain tissue devoted to that quality is reflected in the protrusions of the skull. Gall and John Spurzheim, in 1809, came up with a list of "mental faculties" depicted in Figure 15. Of the 35 areas delineated, 21 were devoted to such propensities and sentiments as amativeness, cautiousness, benevolence, veneration, wonder and ideality. Qualities that in today's world brain scientists would allocate only limited space in the brain at best.