Brain and Cognition Some New Technologies (1989) / Chapter Skim
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2. The Field of Cognitive Psychophysiology
2. The Field of Cognitive Psychophysiology
Pages 7-17
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From page 7... ...
Cognitive science focuses on questions about how information must be stored internally and processed in order for an organism to recognize objects, learn, use language, reason, or navigate. Theories are tested in part by attempting to build computer programs that mimic human performance (the so-called computational approach)
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From page 8... ...
In either case, the computational approach leads one to posit a set of modules and to characterize how they serve to transform information. Cognitive psychology has contributed to cognitive science sophisticated methodologies, a rich data base on characteristics of human performance, and techniques for modeling such data.
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From page 9... ...
THE INTERFACE BETWEEN coGNITWE SCIENCE AND PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY Three fields are currently engaged in the empirical study of mental activity: computational theorists attempt to understand seeing, remembering, reasoning, and so on by building virtual machines that mimic such processes. Cognitive psychologists conduct experiments to measure differences in behavior under different circumstances and attempt to fit models to account for response times, error rates, or various types of decisions.
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From page 10... ...
The section concludes with a discussion of the advantages of combining them, leading to the suggestion, made in Chapter 6, for an enlarged study of the interface between the disciplines. [~ tations and Virtues of a Psychophysiological Approach Psychophysiological data may be especially useful for identifying the structure of information processing in the brain.
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From page 11... ...
Although specifying the precise operation of the individual modules is of course critical for a theory of information processing, at the current level of technology we are unlikely to be able to use methods of assessing brain activity to directly test theories at this level of analysis. The main contribution of the computational approach to cognitive psychophysiology will therefore probably be to offer guidelines for how one formulates theories of processing modules.
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From page 12... ...
Third, the optimal computation will depend in part on the kinds of processing operations that are available and the type of representation used. For example, if a parallel-distributed processing network is used, computing the degree to which an input is similar to stored information should be relatively easy, whereas serial search through a list will be more difflcult-and vice versa if symbols are stored as discrete elements in lists that are operated on by distinct processes.
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From page 13... ...
Although the computational approach is not sufficient in itself to lead one to formulate a correct theory of information processing, it does have a lot to contribute to the enterprise. Analyzing how one could build a computer program to emulate a human function is a very useful way of enumerating alternative processing modules and algorithms.
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From page 14... ...
, more typically they are interested in studying how information is represented and processed within a single stage of processing. However, it has proven difficult to draw firm conclusions about the representations or processes used in even one stage of processing because of two general problems: structure/process trade-offs and task demand artifacts.
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From page 15... ...
One argument to be developed here is that psychophysiological data are powerful supplements to the usual behavioral data, and would greatly constrain the use of structure/process trade-offs to develop alternative theories. Another problem in interpreting behavioral data is the possibility of distorting behavior because of perceived task demands.
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From page 16... ...
When well-specified classes of alternative theories are defined, cognitive psychologists will be better able to specify which phenomena will distinguish among competing accounts (for an example see the mental rotation case noted above in Kosslyn, 1980: Ch.8~. One example of progress following from such a combined approach began with computational analyses suggesting that spatial localization should be decomposed into at least two types of processes.
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From page 17... ...
And in fact, it has been found that categorical spatial relations are apprehended more effectively ~ the left hemisphere, whereas coordinate relations are apprehended more em fectively in the right hemisphere (Kosslyn, 1987' 1988~; this inference is based in part on work using some of the technologies discussed in this report. This dissociation provides evidence for the existence of distinct processes underlying the two types of spatial representation, which was not obvious until computational analyses led to the dim tinction between the two and specific brain-based hypotheses were tested.
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