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Mind and Brain: Dialogues in Cognitive Neuroscience
Researchers in both the brain and the cognitive sciences are attempting to understand the mind. They should be natural allies, but neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists tend to work in isolation. Brain and Mind represents a pioneering attempt to bring them together. The editors' objective was to force scientists who are working on the same problem but from different perspectives to address each other. Through a series of written dialogues on four topics - attention, perception, memory, and emotion - leading researchers sought to discover similarities and differences in their varied approaches. The dialogues demonstrate compellingly that workers in neuroscience and cognition have much to gain by increasing their interactions across disciplinary boundaries. The eight main chapters are each detailed, up-to-date, scholarly reviews of the major methodological, theoretical, and empirical issues.
462 pages, Paperback
First published August 29, 1986
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August 8, 2024
SEEKING ‘COMMON GROUND’ BETWEEN NEUROSCIENCE AND PSYCHOLOGY
The Editor’s Preface to this 1986 collection states, “Several years ago over lunch, we had an extended discussion of the relation between cognitive psychology and neuroscience. One of us defended neurobiological studies of mental processes as fundamental to psychology, while the other argued that such an approach was tolerable but unnecessary for the enterprise of psychology to advance… The impasse led us to embark on a grueling journey through the philosophy of mind literature. After several months of reading we were convinced that the ‘in principle’ solutions to the mind-body problem offered by philosophers from Descartes onward had few if any implications for practicing experimentalists… Our experiments were not going to change even if philosophers came to a consensus about the mind-body problem. Our reading and discussions were useful to us, however… we agreed that neuroscientists and psychologists had something to offer each other… We decided to … see whether other cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists could find anything to discuss. This book was the result.”
In the first chapter, they outline, “The purpose of this book is to encourage neuroscientists and cognitive scientists to take stock, while their disciplines are still young, and consider whether mutual independence is the most prudent course… Our objective in organizing this book was to provide a direct form of interchange, a written dialogue, between psychologists and neuroscientists… we selected topics that are currently being worked on by both cognitive scientists and neuroscientists and organized the book so that interactions take place only between persons working on the same topic… We selected scientists from four areas of investigation: attention, perception, memory, and emotion… This book is an experiment, and in a sense we stacked the deck in our favor by choosing topics conducive to interdisciplinary discussion and by choosing contributors who were willing to interact.”
Richard R. Marrocco write in his essay, “It seems as common … for the neuroscientist to ignore the important behavioral considerations in the design and interpretations of experiments as it is for the cognitive psychologist to lose track of the known neural mechanisms that underlie perceptual behaviors. The lack of motivation is reflected in the attitudes expressed by individual researchers. Neuroscientists criticize cognitive psychologists for failing to become involved in the fundamental operations of the nervous system... Cognitive scientists, in turn, accuse neuroscientists of being unwilling to consider more global approaches to a field. At the heart of the issue, then is an unwillingness to consider alternative scopes to relevant problems… Nonetheless, more interaction would take place if seen to be mutually beneficial to both camps.” (Pg. 80)
William Hirst observes, “Although the computer metaphor can be overused, it nicely illustrates the differences between the two uses of process. When neuroscientists investigate process, it is like computer scientists exploring the functioning of the hardware of a computer. To assess the hardware of the computer, computer scientists may use electrical probes or various ‘direct measurements’ of the electrical flow through the computer just as neuroscientists use both electrical and chemical probes to study neural action. When cognitive psychologists discuss process, it is like computer scientists talking about the functioning of the software of the computer. Only indirect measurements will reveal the nature of the software from the study of behavior.” (Pg. 178)
Ross Buck notes, “What IS unique to humans is language, which has created a culturally patterned system of behavior control that is functionally independent of biology and fundamentally different from anything seen in animals… This does not mean that there is a fundamental biological gap between humans and animals---that is clearly not the case. It is not necessarily the case that animals cannot learn language. There is evidence… that the higher apes … may be capable of significant linguistic skills if taught sign language. It DOES mean that is an animal did learn language, it would cause a fundamental change in the animal’s behavior, because the behaviors would now be controlled by a different sort of structure, a different principle of organization, ON TOP OF the old.” (Pg. 298)
Joseph E. LeDoux points out, “Feelings constitute a class of conscious experiences. For lack of a better definition, feelings might be described as those conscious experiences having to do with the individual’s welfare… such a view… suffers from using one vague term (consciousness) to account for another (feelings). Unless we can specify more clearly what consciousness is, explaining feelings by reference to conscious experiences will not take us very far. One widely held (though not universally accepted) view is that consciousness (self-awareness) is closely tied to natural language systems. Some of the evidence supporting this view includes… organisms with well-developed language systems (i.e., humans) exhibit self-awareness, a capacity that is difficult to demonstrate in other organisms…” (Pg. 350)
In another essays, LeDoux suggests, “It is encouraging, from the point of view of efforts to bring psychologists and neuroscientists together, that emotional psychologists have been willing to borrow concepts and findings from biology and use these inputs to buttress their arguments and constrain their theories. Not all areas of psychology have been so open minded. Unfortunately, however, in some instances, the items borrowed from biology have not been the items lent. For example, the cognitive theory of emotion assumes that autonomic changes during emotional arousal are uniform in all situations. This is clearly false… the cognitive theory needs reformulation. Whether the cognitive theory can survive the kind of restructuring that is required, given the facts about the periphery and its relation to the brain, remains to be seen.” (Pg. 357)
Hirst and LeDoux conclude, “For us, this book nicely demonstrates the fruitlessness of a continuing dialogue between cognitive scientists and neuroscientists… Our enthusiasm springs … from the questions that they raised. It was quite possible that researchers in the two fields would discover very little in common. More likely, neuroscientists and cognitive scientists may have proffered questions of mutual interest, but would then find them too broad and vague to help them in structuring their everyday needs. These two scenarios did not emerge. Rather… there are many different grounds for discussion, and many quite specific questions to be answered. If neuroscientists and psychologists continue to talk, we might find both fields redirecting their interests to a common set of issues, results, and theories.” (Pg. 377-378)
This book will be of interest to those concerned about the interaction between cognitive psychology and neuroscience.
The Editor’s Preface to this 1986 collection states, “Several years ago over lunch, we had an extended discussion of the relation between cognitive psychology and neuroscience. One of us defended neurobiological studies of mental processes as fundamental to psychology, while the other argued that such an approach was tolerable but unnecessary for the enterprise of psychology to advance… The impasse led us to embark on a grueling journey through the philosophy of mind literature. After several months of reading we were convinced that the ‘in principle’ solutions to the mind-body problem offered by philosophers from Descartes onward had few if any implications for practicing experimentalists… Our experiments were not going to change even if philosophers came to a consensus about the mind-body problem. Our reading and discussions were useful to us, however… we agreed that neuroscientists and psychologists had something to offer each other… We decided to … see whether other cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists could find anything to discuss. This book was the result.”
In the first chapter, they outline, “The purpose of this book is to encourage neuroscientists and cognitive scientists to take stock, while their disciplines are still young, and consider whether mutual independence is the most prudent course… Our objective in organizing this book was to provide a direct form of interchange, a written dialogue, between psychologists and neuroscientists… we selected topics that are currently being worked on by both cognitive scientists and neuroscientists and organized the book so that interactions take place only between persons working on the same topic… We selected scientists from four areas of investigation: attention, perception, memory, and emotion… This book is an experiment, and in a sense we stacked the deck in our favor by choosing topics conducive to interdisciplinary discussion and by choosing contributors who were willing to interact.”
Richard R. Marrocco write in his essay, “It seems as common … for the neuroscientist to ignore the important behavioral considerations in the design and interpretations of experiments as it is for the cognitive psychologist to lose track of the known neural mechanisms that underlie perceptual behaviors. The lack of motivation is reflected in the attitudes expressed by individual researchers. Neuroscientists criticize cognitive psychologists for failing to become involved in the fundamental operations of the nervous system... Cognitive scientists, in turn, accuse neuroscientists of being unwilling to consider more global approaches to a field. At the heart of the issue, then is an unwillingness to consider alternative scopes to relevant problems… Nonetheless, more interaction would take place if seen to be mutually beneficial to both camps.” (Pg. 80)
William Hirst observes, “Although the computer metaphor can be overused, it nicely illustrates the differences between the two uses of process. When neuroscientists investigate process, it is like computer scientists exploring the functioning of the hardware of a computer. To assess the hardware of the computer, computer scientists may use electrical probes or various ‘direct measurements’ of the electrical flow through the computer just as neuroscientists use both electrical and chemical probes to study neural action. When cognitive psychologists discuss process, it is like computer scientists talking about the functioning of the software of the computer. Only indirect measurements will reveal the nature of the software from the study of behavior.” (Pg. 178)
Ross Buck notes, “What IS unique to humans is language, which has created a culturally patterned system of behavior control that is functionally independent of biology and fundamentally different from anything seen in animals… This does not mean that there is a fundamental biological gap between humans and animals---that is clearly not the case. It is not necessarily the case that animals cannot learn language. There is evidence… that the higher apes … may be capable of significant linguistic skills if taught sign language. It DOES mean that is an animal did learn language, it would cause a fundamental change in the animal’s behavior, because the behaviors would now be controlled by a different sort of structure, a different principle of organization, ON TOP OF the old.” (Pg. 298)
Joseph E. LeDoux points out, “Feelings constitute a class of conscious experiences. For lack of a better definition, feelings might be described as those conscious experiences having to do with the individual’s welfare… such a view… suffers from using one vague term (consciousness) to account for another (feelings). Unless we can specify more clearly what consciousness is, explaining feelings by reference to conscious experiences will not take us very far. One widely held (though not universally accepted) view is that consciousness (self-awareness) is closely tied to natural language systems. Some of the evidence supporting this view includes… organisms with well-developed language systems (i.e., humans) exhibit self-awareness, a capacity that is difficult to demonstrate in other organisms…” (Pg. 350)
In another essays, LeDoux suggests, “It is encouraging, from the point of view of efforts to bring psychologists and neuroscientists together, that emotional psychologists have been willing to borrow concepts and findings from biology and use these inputs to buttress their arguments and constrain their theories. Not all areas of psychology have been so open minded. Unfortunately, however, in some instances, the items borrowed from biology have not been the items lent. For example, the cognitive theory of emotion assumes that autonomic changes during emotional arousal are uniform in all situations. This is clearly false… the cognitive theory needs reformulation. Whether the cognitive theory can survive the kind of restructuring that is required, given the facts about the periphery and its relation to the brain, remains to be seen.” (Pg. 357)
Hirst and LeDoux conclude, “For us, this book nicely demonstrates the fruitlessness of a continuing dialogue between cognitive scientists and neuroscientists… Our enthusiasm springs … from the questions that they raised. It was quite possible that researchers in the two fields would discover very little in common. More likely, neuroscientists and cognitive scientists may have proffered questions of mutual interest, but would then find them too broad and vague to help them in structuring their everyday needs. These two scenarios did not emerge. Rather… there are many different grounds for discussion, and many quite specific questions to be answered. If neuroscientists and psychologists continue to talk, we might find both fields redirecting their interests to a common set of issues, results, and theories.” (Pg. 377-378)
This book will be of interest to those concerned about the interaction between cognitive psychology and neuroscience.
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