H1 Introducing cognitieve
neuroscience
Penfield: brain surgery for epilepsy.
Electrical stimulation felt like mental/cognitive event.
Cognition: thinking, planning, acting…
Cognitive neuroscience:
Cognitive science & cogn psychology
Biology & neuroscience
Methodological advances: able to study brain safely.
Historical perspective
Philosophical approaches to mind and brain
Mind-body problem:
Brain = key part of body for cognition.
Dualism
Dual-aspect theory: ex. In physics: same entity can be described as a wave and as a particle.
Reductionism: cognitive, mind-based concepts will be replaced by biological constructs.
o Psychology will be reduced to biology.
o Phlogiston construct replaced by understanding of how chemicals combine with
oxygen.
Dual-aspect VS Reductionism: emotion would still feel like emotion even if we would fully understand
neural basis. The usefulness of cognitive, mind-based concepts will never be fully replaced.
Scientific approaches to mind and brain
Aristoteles: ratio of brain size to body size = greatest in humans (advances species).
Cognition = product of the heart (<-> brain)
Brain = coolant system: the higher the intellect, the larger the cooling system needed.
Gall & Spurzheim: phrenology
Different regions in brain perform different functions and are associated with different
behaviours.
Size of these regions produces distortions in the skull and correlates with individual
differences in cognition and personality.
Notion of functional specialisation endured into cognitive neuroscience.
o Observations of Penfield = example of this principle. (but phrenology = not based on
experiments)
o Skull shape has nothing to do with cognitive function!
Broca: 2 cases in which brain damage had caused impaired ability to speak but left other aspects of
cognition intact.
1
, Language = localised in region of brain itself not single entity, but subdivided into speech
recognition, speech production, conceptual knowledge.
o Evidence: brain damage can lead to either poor speech comprehension and good
production OR poor speech production and good comprehension. at least 2
speech faculties in brain that each can be independently impaired by damage.
= huge in development of thinking about mind and brain
Empirical observations to determine building blocks of cognition.
Developing models of cognition that did not make direct reference to the brain.
Cognitive neuropsychology: use of patients with brain damage to inform theories of normal
cognition. cognitive neuropsychology = subsumed in “cognitive neuroscience”.
James & Freud: topics like consciousness, attention and personality. new interest.
One can develop coherent and testable theories that do not make claims about the brain. Modern
foundations of cognitive psychology lie in computer metaphor of the brain: information-processing.
Broadbent: cognition consists of a sequence of processing stages.
Perceptual processes attentional processes short-term memory long-term memory.
One could understand cognitive system in same way as one could understand series of
steps performed on computer program, and without reference to brain.
Theory of modularity: 2 classes of cogn processes
1. Central systems: domain independent type of info processed is non-specific.
2. Modules: domain specificity process only particular type of info.
! others argue that interactivity suggests that modules are not isolated from other cognitive
processes.
Cognitive models element of interactivity and parallel processing.
Interactivity: stages in processing are not completely separate. Later stages can influence
outcome of early ones. (top-down processing in contrast to bottom-up processing)
o Ex. Memory influence on perception.
Parallel processing: different info processes simultaneously.
The birth of cognitive neuroscience
Technological advances: development of functional imaging & enabled brain lesions to be described
precisely.
Present-day neuroscience: broad diversity of methods.
Recording VS stimulation methods:
o Direct electrical stimulation = rare
o Now: indirect stimulation across skull rather than directly to brain.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
Transcranial electrical stimulation (tES)
Electrophysiological methods: EEG/ERP & single cell recordings.
Magnetophysiological methods (MEG)
Last 2 record the magnetic and electrical properties of neurons
themselves.
2
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