# Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience/Cognitive Psychology and the Brain

Imagine the following situation: A young man, let's call him Knut, is
sitting at his desk, reading some papers which he needs to complete a
psychology assignment. In his right hand he holds a cup of coffee. With
his left one he reaches for a bag of sweets without removing the focus
of his eyes from the paper. Suddenly he stares up to the ceiling of his
room and asks himself: "What is happening here?"

Probably everybody has had experiences like the one described above.
Even though at first sight there is nothing exciting happening in this
everyday situation, a lot of what is going on here is highly interesting
particularly for researchers and students in the field of Cognitive
Psychology. They are involved in the study of lots of incredibly
fascinating processes which we are not aware of in this situation.
Roughly speaking, an analysis of Knut\'s situation by Cognitive
Psychologists would look like this:

Knut has a problem; he really needs to do his assignment. To solve this
problem, he has to perform loads of cognition. The light reaching his
eyes is transduced into electrical signals traveling through several
stations to his visual cortex. Meanwhile, complex nets of neurons filter
the information flow and compute contrast, colour, patterns, positions
in space, motion of the objects in Knut\'s environment. Stains and lines
on the screen become words; words get meaning; the meaning is put into
context; analyzed on its relevance for Knut\'s problem and finally maybe
stored in some part of his memory. At the same time an appetite for
sweets is creeping from Knut\'s
hypothalamus, a region in the brain
responsible for controlling the needs of an organism. This appetite
finally causes Knut to reach out for his sweets.

Now, let us take a look into the past to see how Cognitive Psychologists
developed its terminology and methods to interpret ourselves on the
basis of brain, behaviour and theory.

## History of Cognitive Psychology

Early thoughts claimed that knowledge was stored in the brain.

### Renaissance and Beyond

Renaissance philosophers of the 17th century generally agreed with
Nativists and even tried to show the structure and functions of the
brain graphically. But also empiricist philosophers had very important
ideas. According to David Hume, the internal
representations of knowledge are formed obeying particular rules. These
creations and transformations take effort and time. Actually, this is
the basis of much current research in Cognitive Psychology. In the 19th
Century Wilhelm Wundt and Franciscus
Cornelis Donders made the corresponding
experiments measuring the reaction time required for a response, of
which further interpretation gave rise to Cognitive Psychology 55 years
later.

### 20th Century and the Cognitive Revolution

During the first half of the 20th Century, a radical turn in the
investigation of cognition took place. Behaviourists like Burrhus
Frederic Skinner claimed that such mental
internal operations - such as attention, memory, and thinking -- are
only hypothetical constructs that cannot be observed or proven.
Therefore, Behaviorists asserted, mental constructs are not as important
and relevant as the study and experimental analysis of behaviour
(directly observable data) in response to some stimulus. According to
Watson and Skinner, man could be objectively studied only in this way.
The popularity of Behavioralist theory in the psychological world led
investigation of mental events and processes to be abandoned for about
50 years.

In the 1950s scientific interest returned again to attention, memory,
images, language processing, thinking and consciousness. The "failure"
of Behaviourism heralded a new period in the investigation of cognition,
called Cognitive Revolution. This
was characterized by a revival of already existing theories and the rise
of new ideas such as various communication theories. These theories
emerged mainly from the previously created information theory, giving
rise to experiments in signal detection and attention in order to form a
theoretical and practical understanding of communication.

Modern linguists suggested new theories on language and grammar
structure, which were correlated with cognitive processes.
Chomsky's Generative Grammar and Universal
Grammar theory, proposed language hierarchy, and his critique of
Skinner's "Verbal Behaviour" are all milestones in the history of
Cognitive Science. Theories of memory and models of its organization
gave rise to models of other cognitive processes. Computer science,
especially artificial intelligence, re-examined basic theories of
problem solving and the processing and storage of memory, language
processing and acquisition.

**For clarification: Further discussion on the \"behaviorist\"
history.**

Although the above account reflects the most common version of the rise
and fall of behaviorism, it is a misrepresentation. In order to better
understand the founding of cognitive psychology it must be understood in
an accurate historical context. Theoretical disagreements exist in every
science. However, these disagreements should be based on an honest
interpretation of the opposing view. There is a general tendency to draw
a false equivalence between Skinner and Watson. It is true that Watson
rejected the role that mental or conscious events played in the behavior
of humans. In hindsight this was an error. However, if we examine the
historical context of Watson\'s position we can better understand why he
went to such extremes. He, like many young psychologists of the time,
was growing frustrated with the lack of practical progress in
psychological science. The focus on consciousness was yielding
inconsistent, unreliable and conflicting data. Excited by the progress
coming from Pavlov\'s work with elicited responses and looking to the
natural sciences for inspiration, Watson rejected the study of
observable mental events and also pushed psychology to study
stimulus-response relations as a means to better understand human
behavior. This new school of psychology, \"behaviorism\" became very
popular. Skinner\'s school of thought, although inspired by Watson,
takes a very different approach to the study of unobservable mental
events. Skinner proposed that the distinction between \"mind\" and
\"body\" brought with it irreconcilable philosophical baggage. He
proposed that the events going on \"within the skin\", previously
referred to as mental events, be called private events. This would bring
the private experiences of thinking, reasoning, feeling and such, back
into the scientific fold of psychology. However, Skinner proposed that
these were things we are doing rather than events going on at a
theorized mental place. For Skinner, the question was not of a mental
world existing or not, it was whether or not we need to appeal to the
existence of a mental world in order to explain the things going on
inside our heads. Such as the natural sciences ask whether we need to
assume the existence of a creator in order to account for phenomena in
the natural world. For Skinner, it was an error for psychologists to
point to these private events (mental) events as causes of behavior.
Instead, he suggested that these too had to be explained through the
study of how one evolves as a matter of experience. For example, we
could say that a student studies because she \"expects\" to do better on
an exam if she does. To \"expect\" might sound like an acceptable
explanation for the behavior of studying, however, Skinner would ask why
she \"expects\". The answer to this question would yield the true
explanation of why the student is studying. To \"expect\" is to do
something, to behave \"in our head\", and thus must also be explained.

The cognitive psychologist Henry Roediger pointed out that many
psychologists erroneously subscribe to the version of psychology
presented in the first paragraph. He also pointed to the successful
rebuttal against Chomsky\'s review of Verbal behavior. The evidence for
the utility in Skinner\'s book can be seen in the abundance of
actionable data it has generated, therapies unmatched by any modern
linguistic account of language. Roediger reminded his readers that in
fact, we all measure behavior, some simply choose to make more
assumptions about its origins than others. He recalls how, even as a
cognitive psychologist, he has been the focus of criticism for not
making more assumptions about his data. The law of parsimony tells us
that when choosing an explanation for a set of data about observable
behavior (the data all psychologists collect), we must be careful not to
make assumptions beyond those necessary to explain the data. This is
where the main division lies between modern day behavior analysts and
cognitive psychologists. It is not in the rejection of our private
experiences, it is in how these experiences are studied. Behavior
analysts study them in relation to our learning history and the brain
correlates of that history. They use this information to design
environments that change our private experience by changing our
interaction with the world. After all, it is through our interaction
with our relative world that our private experiences evolve. It is a far
cry from the mechanical stimulus-response psychology of John Watson.
Academic honesty requires that we make a good faith effort to understand
what we wish to criticize. Henry Roediger pointed out that many
psychologists understand a very stereotyped, erroneous version of
psychology\'s history. In doing so they miss the many successful real
world applications that Skinner\'s analysis has generated.

Neuroinformatics, which is based on the natural structure of the human
nervous system, tries to build neuronal structures by the idea of
artificial neurons. In addition to that, Neuroinformatics is used as a
field of evidence for psychological models, for example models for
memory. The artificial neuron network "learns" words and behaves like
"real" neurons in the brain. If the results of the artificial neuron
network are quite similar to the results of real memory experiments, it
would support the model. In this way psychological models can be
"tested". Furthermore it would help to build artificial neuron networks,
which posses similar skills like the human such as face recognition.

If more about the ways humans process information was understood, it
would be much simpler to build artificial structures, which have the
same or similar abilities. The area of cognitive development
investigation tried to describe how children develop their cognitive
abilities from infancy to adolescence. The theories of knowledge
representation were first strongly concerned with sensory inputs.
Current scientists claim to have evidence that our internal
representation of reality is not a one-to-one reproduction of the
physical world. It is rather stored in some abstract or neurochemical
code. Tolman, Bartlett, Norman and Rumelhart made some experiments on
cognitive mapping. Here, the inner knowledge seemed not only to be
related to sensory input, but also to be modified by some kind of
knowledge network modeled by past experience.

Newer methods, like Electroencephalography
(EEG) and functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) have given researchers the
possibility to measure brain activity and possibly correlate it to
mental states and processes. All these new approaches in the study of
human cognition and psychology have defined the field of Cognitive
Psychology, a very fascinating field which tries to answer what is quite
possibly the most interesting question posed since the dawn of reason.
There is still a lot to discover and to answer and to ask again, but
first we want to make you more familiar with the concept of Cognitive
Psychology.

## What is Cognitive Psychology?

The easiest answer to this question is: "Cognitive Psychology is the
study of thinking and the processes underlying mental events." Of course
this creates the new problem of what a mental event actually is. There
are many possible answers for this:

Let us look at Knut again to give you some more examples and make the
things clearer. He needs to focus on reading his paper. So all his
attention is directed at the words and sentences which he perceives
through his visual pathways. Other stimuli and information that enter
his cognitive apparatus - maybe some street noise or the fly crawling
along a window - are not that relevant in this moment and are therefore
attended much less. Many higher cognitive abilities are also subject to
investigation. Knut's situation could be explained as a classical
example of problem solving: He needs to get from his present state -- an
unfinished assignment -- to a goal state - a completed assignment - and
has certain operators to achieve that goal. Both Knut's short and long
term memory are active. He needs his short term memory to integrate what
he is reading with the information from earlier passages of the paper.
His long term memory helps him remember what he learned in the lectures
he took and what he read in other books. And of course Knut's ability to
comprehend language enables him to make sense of the letters printed on
the paper and to relate the sentences in a proper way.

This situation can be considered to reflect mental events like
perception, comprehension and memory storage. Some scientists think that
our emotions cannot be considered separate from cognition, so that hate,
love, fear or joy are also sometimes looked at as part of our individual
minds. Cognitive psychologists study questions like: How do we receive
information about the outside world? How do we store it and process it?
How do we solve problems? How is language represented?

Cognitive Psychology is a field of psychology that learns and researches
about mental processes, including perception, thinking, memory, and
judgment. The mainstay of cognitive psychology is the idea where
sensation and perception are both different issues.

## Relations to Neuroscience

### Cognitive Neuropsychology

Of course it would be very convenient if we could understand the nature
of cognition without the nature of the brain itself. But unfortunately
it is very difficult if not impossible to build and prove theories about
our thinking in absence of neurobiological constraints. Neuroscience
comprises the study of neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, brain functions
and related psychological and computer based models. For years,
investigations on a neuronal level were completely separated from those
on a cognitive or psychological level. The thinking process is so vast
and complex that there are too many conceivable solutions to the problem
of how cognitive operation could be accomplished.

Neurobiological data provide physical evidence for a theoretical
approach to the investigation of cognition. Therefore it narrows the
research area and makes it much more exact. The correlation between
brain pathology and behaviour supports scientists in their research. It
has been known for a long time that different types of brain damage,
traumas, lesions, and tumours affect behaviour and cause changes in some
mental functions. The rise of new technologies allows us to see and
investigate brain structures and processes never seen before. This
provides us with a lot of information and material to build simulation
models which help us to understand processes in our mind. As
neuroscience is not always able to explain all the observations made in
laboratories, neurobiologists turn towards Cognitive Psychology in order
to find models of brain and behaviour on an interdisciplinary level --
Cognitive Neuropsychology. This "inter-science" as a bridge connects and
integrates the two most important domains and their methods of research
of the human mind. Research at one level provides constraints,
correlations and inspirations for research at another level.

### Neuroanatomy Basics

The basic building blocks of the brain are a special sort of cells
called neurons. There are approximately 100
billion neurons involved in information processing in the brain. When we
look at the brain superficially, we can\'t see these neurons, but rather
look at two halves called the
hemispheres. The hemispheres
themselves may differ in size and function, as we will see later in the
book, but principally each of them can be subdivided into four parts
called the lobes: the temporal,
parietal,
occipital and frontal
lobe. This division of modern neuroscience
is supported by the up- and down-bulging structure of the brain\'s
surface. The bulges are called gyri (singular gyrus), the creases sulci
(singular sulcus). They are also involved in information processing. The
different tasks performed by different subdivisions of the brain as
attention, memory and language cannot be viewed as separated from each
other, nevertheless some parts play a key role in a specific task. For
example the parietal lobe has been shown to be responsible for
orientation in space and the relation you have to it, the occipital lobe
is mainly responsible for visual perception and imagination etc. Summed
up, brain anatomy poses some basic constraints to what is possible for
us and a better understanding will help us to find better therapies for
cognitive deficits as well as guide research for cognitive
psychologists. It is one goal of our book to present the complex
interactions between the different levels on which the brain that can be
described, and their implications for Cognitive Neuropsychology.

### Methods

Newer methods, like EEG and fMRI etc. allow researchers to correlate the
behaviour of a participant in an experiment with the brain activity
which is measured simultaneously. It is possible to record
neurophysiological responses to certain stimuli or to find out which
brain areas are involved in the execution of certain mental tasks. EEG
measures the electric potentials along the skull through electrodes that
are attached to a cap. While its spatial resolution is not very precise,
the temporal resolution lies within the range of milliseconds. The use
of fMRI benefits from the fact the increased brain activity goes along
with increased blood flow in the active region. The
haemoglobin in the blood has magnetic
properties that are registered by the fMRI scanner. The spatial
resolution of fMRI is very precise in comparison to EEG. On the other
hand, the temporal resolution is in the range of just 1--2 seconds.

## Conclusion

Remember the scenario described at the beginning of the chapter. Knut
was asking himself "What is happening here?" It should have become clear
that this question cannot be simply answered with one or two sentences.
We have seen that the field of Cognitive Psychology comprises a lot of
processes and phenomena of which every single one is subject to
extensive research to understand how cognitive abilities are produced by
our brain. In the following chapters of this WikiBook you will see how
the different areas of research in Cognitive Psychology are trying to
solve the initial question raised by Knut.

