Cognitive Neuroscience

• What is cognitive neuroscience?


  it is a relatively new field that tries to bridge the gap between the cognitive and biological approaches
• when was neuroscience recognized?


  1971
• when and who recognized cognitive neuroscience?


  Miller (Short term memory) and Gazzaniga (split brain research), 20 years after neuroscience was recognized
• what are the things used by cognitive neuroscience to understand what the brains does?


  PET and MRIs to understand which parts of the brain are active while specific internal mental processes are being used
• what does PET and MRIs stand for?


  ->PET (position emission tomography)

  ->MRIs (magnetic resonance imaging)
• what is the hippocampus associated with?


  episodic memory
• what is the temporal lobe associated with? 


  semantic memory
• what is the cerebellum and the motor cortex associated with?


  procedural memory
• what is a strength of the cognitive neuroscience approach?


  ->there is supporting evidence for neurological basis of mental processes. In essence, areas of the brain link to our memories

  ->for example, Tulving (1994) asked participants to perform memory tasks whilst in a PET scan.

  ->he found that semantic memories are stored in the left pre-frontal cortex and the episodic memories are stored in the right pre-frontal cortex
• why is the cognitive neuroscience approach having a lot of supporting evidence a strength?


  ->it supports cognitive neuroscience as it explains where memories (cognitive) are stored in the brain (neuroscience)

  ->this therefore bridges the gap between cognitive and biological and lends support to both approaches
• what is another strength of the cognitive neuroscience approach?


  ->the approach can be considered to be unscientific and by combining cognitive and neuroscience it increases the scientific nature of the approaches

  ->e.g- Burnett found that when people feel guilty, several brain regions are active, including the pre-frontal cortex; an area associated with strong emotions
• why is the cognitive neuroscience approach increasing the scientific nature of the cognitive approach a strength?


  ->it is a strength because the cognitive approach can be considered unscientific due to the inferences made by psychologists

  ->by combining the cognitive and biological approach; psychologists can prove certain areas of the brain are responsible for functions

  ->e.g the pre-frontal cortex being associated with strong emotions
• what is another strength of the cognitive neuroscience approach?


  ->there is real life applications for cognitive neuroscience and treating psychological disorders

  ->e.g abnormal functioning of the left parahippocampal gyrus leads to more processing of unpleasant emotions, which is a feature of OCD
• why is it a strength that the cognitive neuroscience approach has real life applications?


  ->this removes the shame and stigma of developing OCD and helps patients to understand the cause of their mental illness