Cognitive Neuroscience

• Cognitive neuroscience is the study of the brain structure- how the brain looks and how that impacts the behaviour.
• Cognitive neuroscience asks the question how does the neural circuits and physical looks of the brain impact behavior.
• Cognitive neuroscience how changes in neural circuits damage through brain damage impacts the cognitive abilities.
• Cognitive neuroscience is the cognitive ability and brain development.
• Cognitive neuroscience emerged in the 1860's after Paul Broca had a patient called patient Tan who had damage to the brain which was found in his autopsy which was connected to speech.
• Cognitive neuroscience has helped us to look for physiological reason for mental disorders.
• Tulving used PET scanners to scientifically find out that prefrontal cortex was were semantic (understanding e.g. Paris is the capital of France) and episodic (memory e.g. I went to Paris) was where they were recalled from. (it is split, right=episodic, left=semantic).
• Limitation- cognitive neuroscience doesn't involve the enviroment, unlike SLT, which does.
• Limitation- Mind mapping is used in the court of law, but it is not always correct, so there are ethical complications.
• Practical applications of cognitive neuroscience:

  • Use of eye tracking/ motion- tracking to study visual word processing and reading.
  • Use of scanning/imaging to study mental processing patients with depression or OCD.
  • Use of imaging techniques and angiograph to study the affects of normal aging on the brain to to observe the effects of strokes on the brain.