Chapter 2: Congitive Neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience
: the field of psychology that aims to discover the brain mechanisms
that give rise to human mental functions
Kajimura & Nomura
: participants perform verbal while maintaining eye contact (A) or not (B)
poorer performance during condition A than B
Eye contact affects word generation: they rely on shared cognitive processes
The Brain as the Organ of the Mind
-
Relationship between brain and behavior
1)
Functional Specialization
-
Brain is composed of
modules
: different parts of the brain, each of which is resposible
for particular cognitive operations
-
Modules are dedicated input systems for processing specific mental faculties. Ex: only
process color, or orientation of lines and visual stimuli
Localized to particular brain areas
Domain specific
Fast and work in a mandatory manner
“encapsualted”: do their job with what they have
-
principle of neural representation: our experiences are due to representations in our NS
-
Is the brain completely modular? How many modules are there?
debates
-
Agreement: basic principle
-
Gall and Spurzheim
:
Phrenology:
the study of the shape, size, and protrusions of the
cranium in an attempt to discover the relationships between parts of the brain and
various mental activities and abilities.
-
Hypothesis: specific functions are localized in specific parts of the brain
-
This theory isn’t still believed today, but led to subsequent research
-
Their 3 basic principles:
1)
The brain is the sole organ of the mind
2)
Basic character and intellectual traits are innately determined
3)
There are differentially developed areas in brain responsible for those differences
where there is variation in function, there must be variation in controlling
structures
-
The more highly developed a function was, the larger it would be and therefore the
more clearly it would show as a protrusion on the skull
-
So can find weaknesses and strengths just by looking at shape of skull
-
Weakness of this method: Method for localizing functions was very speculative
Ex: Gall saw pic of mozart that rested head on forehead, so that area must be the
area that supports music
2)
Opposition to functional specialization
-
Localization of function:
the idea that there is a direct correspondance between specific
cognitive functions and specific parts of the brain
-
Franz:
ablation: parts of cortex are destroyed and the consequences on behavior are
observed
Made holes in brain
observe effect on retention of simple learned maze
then
open skull and see where hole was
Observed that as long as enough tissue remained in brain, the location of that
tissue was irrelevent
mental processes are actually due to activities of the brain
as a whole
-
Lashley (
learned Franz’s research) and also did studies on rats and found that:
Small lesions did nothing
mechanisms aren’t grouped within small areas
Performance declined as the difficulty of the task increased and/or the amount
of
brain damage increased.
