Cognitive Science and Cognitive Neuroscience PSY 421 – Fall 2004

Overview  Getting all the terminology straight  Cognitive Science  Cognitive Neuroscience Methodology Methodology What do we know about the organization of the brain? What do we know about the organization of the brain?  Where is the field of cognition today?  Where is the field of cognition going?

Terminology  Cognitive Science – multidisciplinary study of the nature of the human mind – (study of the brain not necessarily involved) Psychology Psychology Artificial Intelligence Artificial Intelligence Linguistics Linguistics Anthropology Anthropology Neuroscience Neuroscience Philosophy Philosophy Education Education  Cognitive Neuroscience - investigating the psychological, computational, and neuroscientific bases of cognition (the brain and mind) Neuroscience – study of the brain and nervous system Neuroscience – study of the brain and nervous system Behavioral Neuroscience – cognition and emotion Behavioral Neuroscience – cognition and emotion Computation Neuroscience – neuroscience, computer science, and applied mathematics Computation Neuroscience – neuroscience, computer science, and applied mathematics  Neurocognition – study of cognitive functions closely linked to the function of particular areas, neural pathways, or cortical networks in the brain  Neuropsychology – study of the relationship between the brain and behavior; how the structure and function of the brain relates to specific psychological processes

Cognitive Science  Psychology – everything from this class would be relevant  Artificial Intelligence – development of computational models that simulate aspects of human performance  Linguistics – identification of grammatical principles that provide the basic structure of human languages  Anthropology - expanding the examination of human thinking to consider how thought works in different cultural settings  Neuroscience – non-invasive methods of studying the brain and behavior; use of computation models to guide theory development  Philosophy – deep understanding of the abstract ideas behind mind and behavior; deals with general questions such as the relation of mind and body  Education – considering the way in which individuals learn and experience new information and how to improve learning

Cognitive Science   Critics of cognitive science and its computational-representational approach have offered such challenges as: The emotion challenge: Cognitive science neglects the important role of emotions in human thinking. The consciousness challenge: Cognitive science ignores the importance of consciousness in human thinking. The world challenge: Cognitive science disregards the significant role of physical environments in human thinking. The body challenge: Cognitive science neglects the contribution of the body to human thought and action. The social challenge: Human thought is inherently social in ways that cognitive science ignores. The dynamical systems challenge: The mind is a dynamical system, not a computational system. The mathematics challenge: Mathematical results show that human thinking cannot be computational in the standard sense, so the brain must operate differently, perhaps as a quantum computer.   Thagard (1996) argues that all these challenges can best be met by expanding and supplementing the computational-representational approach, not by abandoning it.

Cognitive Neuroscience  The study of “how the brain thinks”  Whereas cognitive psychologists seek to understand the mind and its processes, cognitive neuroscientists are concerned with understanding how the mental processes take place in the brain  The two overlap, however, in that: an understanding of mental structure can inform theories about brain functions an understanding of mental structure can inform theories about brain functions knowledge about neural mechanisms are useful in understanding mental structure knowledge about neural mechanisms are useful in understanding mental structure

Neuroscience Methodology  Lesions  Direct Stimulation (Penfield)  Imaging Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Electroencephalogram (EEG) Electroencephalogram (EEG) Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) Event-Related Potentials (ERPs)

What we know about the organization of the brain  The cerebral hemispheres control activity in the body contralaterally; this means that the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body and the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body (in a few situations, the brain hemispheres control the same side of the body as the hemisphere, right hemisphere to right side of body, left hemisphere to left side of body; this is called ipsilateral)  The two hemispheres look similar but are actually structured differently and process different information - this is referred to as hemispheric specialization  Within the two hemispheres, particular locations are thought to be primarily responsible for certain behaviors - this is referred to as localization of function and Broca’s and Wernicke’s language areas are examples of this; localization of function does not mean that one particular location controls all of a certain type of information processing, like language, exclusively; it just means that the area is thought to make a large contribution to the processing of that information

Where is the field of cognition today? In the future?  Today Basic Research in cognition? Basic Research in cognition? Collaborative research Collaborative research Within PsychologyWithin Psychology With other disciplinesWith other disciplines Computational Psychology Computational Psychology Neuroscience Neuroscience  Future Neuroscience!!! Neuroscience!!!