PS390 Study Guide - Final Guide: Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuroscience, Sociobiology
Document Summary
Behavioural research and cognition were able to gain "prestige" in the natural sciences by incorporating the neuroscience approach in the 1990s. Common thread in neuroscience is the assumption that animals and humans learn and that learning later affects behaviour. Lab experiments are conducted to determine biological bases for behaviour which are in turn extrapolated to human psychological processes. Focus is on interactions b/w neurobiology, learning, behaviour, cognition. Multi-disciplinary approach to answering questions about relationship b/w mental processes and brain structures and processes. Draws on knowledge base of cognitive psych, biological psych, computer cience, behavioural geneticists, and philosophers. Brain processes are foundation for cognition and by examining cognitive processes using neuroscience technology, valid hypotheses concerning function and structure of human cognition can be tested. Two main findings of neuroscience: (1) when thought is conscious, process symbolic information serially (2) when thought is not conscious, we process into in a non linear fashion.
