Cognitive Neuropsychology

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Cognitive Neuropsychology

• WELCOME TO THE COURSE
• Some useful info
• Outline course structure / content
• Sort out seminar groups / times
• Make a start on the material

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Cognitive Neuropsychology

• Useful Info
• Lecturers Sam Hutton Brendan Weekes
• Contact info samh_at_sussex, b.s.weekes_at_sussex
• My office is JMS 5D15- office hours Monday
  1030-1200
• Course Website
• www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/teaching/C8517/
• PLEASE CHECK THIS SITE REGULARLY
• Course structure 2 Lectures a week . 1 Seminar
  (two hours) in weeks 2,4,6 and 8.

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TIMETABLE
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Cognitive Neuropsychology

• Reading
• Background Listen to the 2003 Reith Lectures
• www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003
• Course Textbook Rapp, B (2000) The Handbook of
  Cognitive Neuropsychology
• Other useful books Parkin, AJ (1998)
  Explorations in Cognitive Neuropsychology. Ellis
  Young (1996) Human Cognitive Neuropsychology.
• In the final year you must read beyond the
  textbook use it as an introduction to other
  primary sources (e.g. journal articles) not as a
  substitute.

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Cognitive Neuropsychology

• What is it?
• Cognitive Psychology The study of the mental
  processes used in everyday life.
• Based on an analogy between the mind and the
  digital computer -the information processing
  approach.
• Assumptions
• Cognition can be understood by analysing it in
  terms of a series of (mainly) sequential stages
• During these stages information (representations
  / symbols) is acted upon by processes
• This takes time (so predictions about RT can be
  made)
• The mind is a limited capacity processor.

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Cognitive Neuropsychology

• What is it?
• Cognitive Psychology The study of the mental
  processes used in everyday life.
• Based on an analogy between the mind and the
  digital computer -the information processing
  approach.
• Key Questions
• What are the stages through which information is
  processed?
• In what form is information represented in the
  human mind?

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Cognitive Neuropsychology

• What is it?
• Neuropsychology The study of the relationship
  between brain and behaviour.
• A (very) brief history
• Extension of localisationist approach to human
  sciences that began in the Renaissance.
• Phrenology was one early result (Spurzheim /
  Gall)
• Golden age of Neuropsychology 1860-1905 Broca
  Wernicke etc
• Rise of both behaviourism and psychoanalytical
  approach led to decline ideas of
  equipotentiality and mass-action dominant until
  1950s
• Neuropsychology re-emerged as a more well defined
  discipline in the 1980s.

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Cognitive Neuropsychology

• What is it?
• Neuropsychology The study of the relationship
  between brain and behaviour.
• This definition is very broad includes
  psychopharmacology, behavioural genetics,
  non-cognitive behaviour (feeding / locomotion
  etc)
• So definition is usually restricted to concern
  studies that examine the effects of brain damage
  on behaviour.
• Neuropsychology is cognitive to the extent that
  it purports to clarify the mechanisms of
  cognitiev function such as thinking, reading,
  writing, speaking, recognising or remembering,
  using evidence from neuropathology Campbell,
  1987.
• Cognitive Neuropsychology can be thought of as a
  subdiscipline of Cognitive Psychology

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Relation to other disciplines

• What is it?
• Cognitive Science
• Develops computational models of cognition (often
  to simulate the results of experiments)
• Experimental Cognitive Psychology
• Empirical, behavioural data from controlled
  studies using healthy participants
• Cognitive Neuropsychology
• Studes of brain damaged patients to inform models
  of healthy cognition
• Cognitive Neuropsychiatry
• Studies of specific symptoms in patients with
  psychiatric / neurological disorders
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Neural basis of behaviour in animals often maps
  neural activity onto function
• Behavioural Neurology
• Uses data concerning anatomy and physiology of
  CNS to guide interpretations of disordered
  behaviour due to neural damage.

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Cognitive Neuropsychology vsClinical
Neuropsychology

• Both disciplines are intimately linked, but
  differ significantly in emphasis.
• Both focus on the effects of brain damage on
  psychological processes
• Aims of Clinical Neuropsychology are
• Determine Pathology
• Characterise Deficit
• Establish baseline levels of performance
• Aims of Cognitive Neuropsychology are
• understand effects of brain damage in terms of
  disruptions to a model of healthy cognitive
  function
• Use information from patients with brain damage
  to constrain models of healthy cognitive function.

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Cognitive Neuropsychology
In any well made machine one is ignorant of the
working of most of the parts the better they
work, the less we are conscious of them it is
only a fault which draws attention to the
mechanism at all Craik, 1943
Cognitive Neuropsychology rests on a number of
important assumptions about the relationship
between brain and behaviour
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What can we conclude about how the printer works
from this output?