cognitive neuroscience Flashcards
what is cognitive neuroscience?
cognitive neuroscience aims to explore the neurobiological basis of thought processes and disorders.
the use of scanning techniques - fMRI and PET scans.
the study of neurotypical individuals to locate the physical basis of cognitive processes in the brain.
describe the emergence of cognitive neuroscience.
Cognitive neuroscience is a discipline that is a combination of several other disciplines, notably cognitive psychology, cognitive science and neuroscience.
Its main focus is to look for a biological basis to thought processes, specifically at how the neurons explain those processes.
Mapping brain areas to specific cognitive functions has a long history - in the 1860s Paul Broca had identified how damage to an area of the frontal lobe (which became known as Broca’s area) could permanently impair speech production.
The discipline has emerged as technology has advanced - as scanning machines have advanced so too has the ability to investigate how the brain activity might underpin thought.
Miller and Gazzaniga first used the label ‘cognitive neuroscience’ in 1971 - Cognitive neuroscientists wanted to bridge the gap between cognitive science and neuroscience - cognitive neuroscience.
one strength of cognitive neuroscience is its use of scientific methods.
The cognitive approach has always employed highly controlled and rigorous methods of study in order to enable researchers to infer cognitive processes at work.
In addition, the emergence of cognitive neuroscience has enabled the two fields of biology and cognitive psychology to come together.
This means that the study of the mind has established a credible scientific basis.
discuss practical application as a strength of cognitive neuroscience.
one strength of CN is its practical application.
early identification for cognitive problems prior to observable behaviour has provided potential for early intervention.
also provided neurobiological basis of certain psychological disorders (e.g. role of the parahippocampal gyrus in OCD) - resulting in the development of new therapeutics and removing blame and stigma.
provides value to CN as an approach.
describe the study by Maguire (2000) as support for cognitive neuroscience.
The aim of the study was to investigate the function of the hippocampus in spatial memory.
The participants for this study were 16 healthy, right-handed male licensed London taxi drivers. The taxi drivers were compared with the MRI scans of 50 healthy right-handed males who did not drive taxis.
The first main findings of the research were that the hippocampi of taxi drivers were significantly larger relative to those of control subjects.
The second main finding was that hippocampal volume correlated with the amount of time spent as a taxi driver (i.e. the longer the participant had been working, the bigger his hippocampus was).
demonstrates the interaction between cognitive processes, neural mechanisms, and environmental factors.
also provides evidence of brain plasticity, supporting the importance of considering both cognitive and neural aspects in understanding human behaviour as proposed in CN.
outline issues and debates in cognitive neuroscience.
Nomothetic - highly scientific methods are used.
Nature and Nurture - (interactionist) – behaviour is genetically predetermined, related to brain structure or biochemical changes.
today they do acknowledge nurture can affect nature - as we have brain plasticity.
determinist view of behaviour - the biological approach is seen to be determinist that is that it states that all behaviour is determined by internal processes and some external learning.
reductionist – physiological reductionism to genes, biochemicals or brain structural explanations.
culture bias – the samples of ptp have been from western, educated demographics.
