Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental processes. It addresses the questions of how cognitive activities are affected or controlled by neural circuits in the brain. Cognitive neuroscience is a branch of both neuroscience and psychology, overlapping with disciplines such as behavioral neuroscience, cognitive psychology, physiological psychology and affective neuroscience. Cognitive neuroscience relies upon theories in cognitive science coupled with evidence from neurobiology, and computational modeling.
In philosophy of mind, neuroscience, and cognitive science, a mental image is an experience that, on most occasions, significantly resembles the experience of "perceiving" some object, event, or scene, but occurs when the relevant object, event, or scene is not actually present to the senses. There are sometimes episodes, particularly on falling asleep and waking up, when the mental imagery may be dynamic, phantasmagoric and involuntary in character, repeatedly presenting identifiable objects or actions, spilling over from waking events, or defying perception, presenting a kaleidoscopic field, in which no distinct object can be discerned. Mental imagery can sometimes produce the same effects as would be produced by the behavior or experience imagined.
ACT-R is a cognitive architecture mainly developed by John Robert Anderson and Christian Lebiere at Carnegie Mellon University. Like any cognitive architecture, ACT-R aims to define the basic and irreducible cognitive and perceptual operations that enable the human mind. In theory, each task that humans can perform should consist of a series of these discrete operations.
The consciousness and binding problem is the problem of how objects, background and abstract or emotional features are combined into a single experience.
The superior temporal gyrus (STG) is one of three gyri in the temporal lobe of the human brain, which is located laterally to the head, situated somewhat above the external ear.
John Robert Anderson is a Canadian-born American psychologist. He is currently professor of Psychology and Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.
David J. Heeger is an American neuroscientist, psychologist, computer scientist, data scientist, and entrepreneur. He is a professor at New York University, Chief Scientific Officer of Statespace Labs, and Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Epistemic AI.
The posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) is the caudal part of the cingulate cortex, located posterior to the anterior cingulate cortex. This is the upper part of the "limbic lobe". The cingulate cortex is made up of an area around the midline of the brain. Surrounding areas include the retrosplenial cortex and the precuneus.
The fusiform face area is a part of the human visual system that is specialized for facial recognition. It is located in the inferior temporal cortex (IT), in the fusiform gyrus.
Patricia A. Carpenter is a psychologist who, as of 1997, held the Lee and Marge Gregg Professorship of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. Carpenter has studied individual variability in working memory, comprehension rates in speed reading, and how brain function during complex cognitive tasks appears in functional magnetic resonance imaging. With Marcel Just, she coauthored The Psychology of Reading and Language Comprehension (1987).
Marlene Behrmann is a Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh. She was previously a Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. She specializes in the cognitive neuroscience of visual perception, with a specific focus on object recognition.
Nancy Minshew is a Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University of Pittsburgh. She directs the Center of Excellence in Autism Research and is an internationally known expert in the cognitive, neurological, and genetic bases of autism. Minshew was trained as a behavioral child neurologist, and she received an M.D. from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
4CAPS is a cognitive architecture developed by Marcel A. Just and Sashank Varma at Carnegie Mellon University. It is the successor of the CAPS and 3CAPS cognitive architectures.
In neuroscience, functional specialization is a theory which suggests that different areas in the brain are specialized for different functions.
Educational neuroscience is an emerging scientific field that brings together researchers in cognitive neuroscience, developmental cognitive neuroscience, educational psychology, educational technology, education theory and other related disciplines to explore the interactions between biological processes and education. Researchers in educational neuroscience investigate the neural mechanisms of reading, numerical cognition, attention and their attendant difficulties including dyslexia, dyscalculia and ADHD as they relate to education. Researchers in this area may link basic findings in cognitive neuroscience with educational technology to help in curriculum implementation for mathematics education and reading education. The aim of educational neuroscience is to generate basic and applied research that will provide a new transdisciplinary account of learning and teaching, which is capable of informing education. A major goal of educational neuroscience is to bridge the gap between the two fields through a direct dialogue between researchers and educators, avoiding the "middlemen of the brain-based learning industry". These middlemen have a vested commercial interest in the selling of "neuromyths" and their supposed remedies.
The neural basis of self is the idea of using modern concepts of neuroscience to describe and understand the biological processes that underlie humans' perception of self-understanding. The neural basis of self is closely related to the psychology of self with a deeper foundation in neurobiology.
Social cognitive neuroscience is the scientific study of the biological processes underpinning social cognition. Specifically, it uses the tools of neuroscience to study "the mental mechanisms that create, frame, regulate, and respond to our experience of the social world". Social cognitive neuroscience uses the epistemological foundations of cognitive neuroscience, and is closely related to social neuroscience. Social cognitive neuroscience employs human neuroimaging, typically using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Human brain stimulation techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct-current stimulation are also used. In nonhuman animals, direct electrophysiological recordings and electrical stimulation of single cells and neuronal populations are utilized for investigating lower-level social cognitive processes.
Autism's symptoms result from maturation-related changes in various systems of the brain. Although it is not well understood how autism occurs, there have been attempts to describe the mechanisms involved. Conceptually, one can divide its development into two areas: the pathophysiology of brain structures and processes associated with autism, and the neuropsychological linkages between brain structures and behaviors. The behaviors appear to have multiple pathophysiologies.
Sharlene D. Newman is an American cognitive neuroscientist, executive director of the Alabama Life Research Institute at the University of Alabama (UA), Professor in the Department of Psychology at UA, and an adjunct professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University.
Cleotilde Gonzalez is a Research Professor of Decision Sciences in the Social and Decision Sciences Department. She is also the founding director of the Dynamic decision-making laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University. Gonzalez is also affiliated with the Security and Privacy Institute (CyLab), the Center for Behavioral Decision Research (CBDR), the Human Computer Interaction Institute, the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging, and the Center for Neural Basis of Cognition.
