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The long-standing assumption in the neurosciences that the subjective phe-nomena of conscious experiences do not exert any causal influence on the sequence of events in the physical brain process is directly challenged in this current view of the nature of mind and the mind-brain relationship. A the-ory of mind is suggested in which consciousness, interpreted to be a direct emergent property of cerebral activity, is conceived to be an integral com-ponent of the brain process that functions as an essential constituent of the action and exerts a directive holistic form of control over the flow pattern of cerebral excitation. In studies involving surgical section of the cerebral commissures, we have been con-fronted repeatedly in recent years with ques-tions concerning the quality and distribution of conscious awareness in the bisected brain, particularly in work with human patients
R. W. Sperry (Wed,) studied this question.