Download or read book Subcortical Structures and Cognition written by Leonard F. Koziol and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-04-21 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clinical psychologists and neuropsychologists are traditionally taught that cognition is mediated by the cortex and that subcortical brain regions mediate the coordination of movement. However, this argument can easily be challenged based upon the anatomic organization of the brain. The relationship between the prefrontal cortex/frontal lobes and basal ganglia is characterized by loops from these anterior brain regions to the striatum, the globus pallidus, and the thalamus, and then back to the frontal cortex. There is also a cerebrocerebellar system defined by projections from the cerebral cortex to the pontine nuclei, to the cerebellar cortex and deep cerebellar nuclei, to the red nucleus and then back to thalamus and cerebral cortex, including all regions of the frontal lobes. Therefore, both the cortical-striatal and cortical-cerebellar projections are anatomically defined as re-entrant systems that are obviously in a position to influence not only motor behavior, but also cognition and affect. This represents overwhelming evidence based upon neuroanatomy alone that subcortical regions play a role in cognition. The first half of this book defines the functional neuroanatomy of cortical-subcortical circuitries and establishes that since structure is related to function, what the basal ganglia and cerebellum do for movement they also do for cognition and emotion. The second half of the book examines neuropsychological assessment. Patients with lesions restricted to the cerebellum and/or basal ganglia have been described as exhibiting a variety of cognitive deficits on neuropsychological tests. Numerous investigations have demonstrated that higher-level cognitive functions such as attention, executive functioning, language, visuospatial processing, and learning and memory are affected by subcortical pathologies. There is also considerable evidence that the basal ganglia and cerebellum play a critical role in the regulation of affect and emotion. These brain regions are an integral part of the brain’s executive system. The ability to apply new methodologies clinically is essential in the evaluation of disorders with subcortical pathology, including various developmental disorders (broadly defined to include learning disorders and certain psychiatric conditions), for the purpose of gaining greater understanding of these conditions and developing appropriate methodologies for treatment. The book is organized around three sources of evidence: neuroanatomical connections; patients with various disease processes; experimental studies, including various imaging techniques. These three sources of data present compelling evidence that the basal ganglia and cerebellum are involved in cognition, affect, and emotion. The question is no longer if these subcortical regions are involved in these processes, but instead, how they are involved. The book is also organized around two basic concepts: (1) the functional neuroanatomy of the basal ganglia and the cerebellum; and (2) how this relates to behavior and neuropsychological testing. Cognitive neuroscience is entering a new era as we recognize the roles of subcortical structures in the modulation of cognition. The fields of neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychiatry, and neurology are all developing in the direction of understanding the roles of subcortical structures in behavior. This book is informative while defining the need and direction for new paradigms and methodologies for neuropsychological assessment.
Download or read book Discovering the Brain written by National Academy of Sciences and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The brain ... There is no other part of the human anatomy that is so intriguing. How does it develop and function and why does it sometimes, tragically, degenerate? The answers are complex. In Discovering the Brain, science writer Sandra Ackerman cuts through the complexity to bring this vital topic to the public. The 1990s were declared the "Decade of the Brain" by former President Bush, and the neuroscience community responded with a host of new investigations and conferences. Discovering the Brain is based on the Institute of Medicine conference, Decade of the Brain: Frontiers in Neuroscience and Brain Research. Discovering the Brain is a "field guide" to the brainâ€"an easy-to-read discussion of the brain's physical structure and where functions such as language and music appreciation lie. Ackerman examines: How electrical and chemical signals are conveyed in the brain. The mechanisms by which we see, hear, think, and pay attentionâ€"and how a "gut feeling" actually originates in the brain. Learning and memory retention, including parallels to computer memory and what they might tell us about our own mental capacity. Development of the brain throughout the life span, with a look at the aging brain. Ackerman provides an enlightening chapter on the connection between the brain's physical condition and various mental disorders and notes what progress can realistically be made toward the prevention and treatment of stroke and other ailments. Finally, she explores the potential for major advances during the "Decade of the Brain," with a look at medical imaging techniquesâ€"what various technologies can and cannot tell usâ€"and how the public and private sectors can contribute to continued advances in neuroscience. This highly readable volume will provide the public and policymakersâ€"and many scientists as wellâ€"with a helpful guide to understanding the many discoveries that are sure to be announced throughout the "Decade of the Brain."
Download or read book The Cognition of Basic Musical Structures written by David Temperley and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2004-08-20 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, David Temperley addresses a fundamental question about music cognition: how do we extract basic kinds of musical information, such as meter, phrase structure, counterpoint, pitch spelling, harmony, and key from music as we hear it? Taking a computational approach, Temperley develops models for generating these aspects of musical structure. The models he proposes are based on preference rules, which are criteria for evaluating a possible structural analysis of a piece of music. A preference rule system evaluates many possible interpretations and chooses the one that best satisfies the rules. After an introductory chapter, Temperley presents preference rule systems for generating six basic kinds of musical structure: meter, phrase structure, contrapuntal structure, harmony, and key, as well as pitch spelling (the labeling of pitch events with spellings such as A flat or G sharp). He suggests that preference rule systems not only show how musical structures are inferred, but also shed light on other aspects of music. He substantiates this claim with discussions of musical ambiguity, retrospective revision, expectation, and music outside the Western canon (rock and traditional African music). He proposes a framework for the description of musical styles based on preference rule systems and explores the relevance of preference rule systems to higher-level aspects of music, such as musical schemata, narrative and drama, and musical tension.
Download or read book The Cognitive Structure of Emotions written by Andrew Ortony and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has long been clear that the way in which people interpret the world affects our emotional reactions. What has been less clear is exactly how such different interpretations lead to different emotions. This is the central question addressed by The Cognitive Structure of Emotions. Taking a cognitive science perspective, a systematic account is presented of the cognitive structures that underlie a wide range of different emotions. Detailed proposals about the factors that affect intensity are also offered. The authors propose three broad classes of emotions, each corresponding to a different attentional focus. One class consists of reactions to events, one of reactions to the actions of agents, and one of reactions to objects. By basing their analysis of the antecedents of emotions on an analysis of the perceived situational conditions that elicit them, the authors offer the prospect of accounting for variations in the emotions of different individuals, different cultures, and perhaps even different species.
Download or read book Learnability and Cognition new edition written by Steven Pinker and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013-05-24 with total page 509 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A classic book about language acquisition and conceptual structure, with a new preface by the author, "The Secret Life of Verbs." Before Steven Pinker wrote bestsellers on language and human nature, he wrote several technical monographs on language acquisition that have become classics in cognitive science. Learnability and Cognition, first published in 1989, brought together two big topics: how do children learn their mother tongue, and how does the mind represent basic categories of meaning such as space, time, causality, agency, and goals? The stage for this synthesis was set by the fact that when children learn a language, they come to make surprisingly subtle distinctions: pour water into the glass and fill the glass with water sound natural, but pour the glass with water and fill water into the glass sound odd. How can this happen, given that children are not reliably corrected for uttering odd sentences, and they don't just parrot back the correct ones they hear from their parents? Pinker resolves this paradox with a theory of how children acquire the meaning and uses of verbs, and explores that theory's implications for language, thought, and the relationship between them. As Pinker writes in a new preface, "The Secret Life of Verbs," the phenomena and ideas he explored in this book inspired his 2007 bestseller The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. These technical discussions, he notes, provide insight not just into language acquisition but into literary metaphor, scientific understanding, political discourse, and even the conceptions of sexuality that go into obscenity.
Download or read book The Structure of Time written by Vyvyan Evans and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2004-03-05 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most enigmatic aspects of experience concerns time. Since pre-Socratic times scholars have speculated about the nature of time, asking questions such as: What is time? Where does it come from? Where does it go? The central proposal of The Structure of Time is that time, at base, constitutes a phenomenologically real experience. Drawing on findings in psychology, neuroscience, and utilising the perspective of cognitive linguistics, this work argues that our experience of time may ultimately derive from perceptual processes, which in turn enable us to perceive events. As such, temporal experience is a pre-requisite for abilities such as event perception and comparison, rather than an abstraction based on such phenomena. The book represents an examination of the nature of temporal cognition, with two foci: (i) an investigation into (pre-conceptual) temporal experience, and (ii) an analysis of temporal structure at the conceptual level (which derives from temporal experience).
Download or read book Structure and Cognition written by Veena Das and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1990 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The winner of the prestigious G.S. Ghurye Award for Indian sociology, this analysis of Hindu caste and ritual departs from conventional empirical studies of local communities by drawing on selected myths in Puranic and Sutra literature, particularly the Dharmaranya Purana and the Grihya Sutra.
Download or read book The Visual Language of Comics written by Neil Cohn and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-12-05 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawings and sequential images are an integral part of human expression dating back at least as far as cave paintings, and in contemporary society appear most prominently in comics. Despite this fundamental part of human identity, little work has explored the comprehension and cognitive underpinnings of visual narratives-until now. This work presents a provocative theory: that drawings and sequential images are structured the same as language. Building on contemporary theories from linguistics and cognitive psychology, it argues that comics are written in a visual language of sequential images that combines with text. Like spoken and signed languages, visual narratives use a lexicon of systematic patterns stored in memory, strategies for combining these patterns into meaningful units, and a hierarchic grammar governing the combination of sequential images into coherent expressions. Filled with examples and illustrations, this book details each of these levels of structure, explains how cross-cultural differences arise in diverse visual languages of the world, and describes what the newest neuroscience research reveals about the brain's comprehension of visual narratives. From this emerges the foundation for a new line of research within the linguistic and cognitive sciences, raising intriguing questions about the connections between language and the diversity of humans' expressive behaviours in the mind and brain.
Download or read book Language in Cognition written by Cedric Boeckx and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-04-29 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook explores the ways in which language informs the structure and function of the human mind, offering a point of entry into the fascinating territory of cognitive science. Focusing mainly on syntactic issues, Language in Cognition is a unique contribution to this burgeoning field of study. Guides undergraduate students through the core questions of linguistics and cognitive science, and provides tools that will help them think about the field in a structured way Uses the study of language and how language informs the structure and function of the human mind to introduce the major ideas in modern cognitive science, including its history and controversies Explores questions such as: what does it mean to say that linguistics is part of the cognitive sciences; how do the core properties of language compare with the core properties of other human cognitive abilities such as vision, music, mathematics, and other mental building blocks; and what is the relationship between language and thought? Includes an indispensable study guide as well as extensive references to encourage further independent study
Download or read book Neuroimaging Personality Social Cognition and Character written by John R Absher and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2016-01-30 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neuroimaging Personality, Social Cognition, and Character covers the science of combining brain imaging with other analytical techniques for use in understanding cognition, behavior, consciousness, memory, language, visual perception, emotional control, and other human attributes. Multidimensional brain imaging research has led to a greater understanding of character traits such as honesty, generosity, truthfulness, and foresight previously unachieved by quantitative mapping. This book summarizes the latest brain imaging research pertaining to character with structural and functional human brain imaging in both normal individuals and those with brain disease or disorder, including psychiatric disorders.By reviewing and synthesizing the latest structural and functional brain imaging research related to character, this book situates itself into the larger framework of cognitive neuroscience, psychiatric neuroimaging, related fields of research, and a wide range of academic fields, such as politics, psychology, medicine, education, law, and religion. - Provides a novel innovative reference on the emerging use of neuroimaging to reveal the biological substrates of character, such as optimism, honesty, generosity, and others - Features chapters from leading physicians and researchers in the field - Contains full-color text that includes both an overview of multiple disciplines and a detailed review of modern neuroimaging tools as they are applied to study human character - Presents an integrative volume with far-reaching implications for guiding future imaging research in the social, psychological and medical sciences, and for applying these findings to a wide range of non-clinical disciplines such as law, politics, and religion - Connects brain structure and function to human character and integrates modern neuroimaging techniques and other research methods for this purpose
Download or read book Cognition in the Wild written by Edwin Hutchins and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1996-08-26 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edwin Hutchins combines his background as an anthropologist and an open ocean racing sailor and navigator in this account of how anthropological methods can be combined with cognitive theory to produce a new reading of cognitive science. His theoretical insights are grounded in an extended analysis of ship navigation—its computational basis, its historical roots, its social organization, and the details of its implementation in actual practice aboard large ships. The result is an unusual interdisciplinary approach to cognition in culturally constituted activities outside the laboratory—"in the wild." Hutchins examines a set of phenomena that have fallen in the cracks between the established disciplines of psychology and anthropology, bringing to light a new set of relationships between culture and cognition. The standard view is that culture affects the cognition of individuals. Hutchins argues instead that cultural activity systems have cognitive properties of their own that are different from the cognitive properties of the individuals who participate in them. Each action for bringing a large naval vessel into port, for example, is informed by culture: the navigation team can be seen as a cognitive and computational system. Introducing Navy life and work on the bridge, Hutchins makes a clear distinction between the cognitive properties of an individual and the cognitive properties of a system. In striking contrast to the usual laboratory tasks of research in cognitive science, he applies the principal metaphor of cognitive science—cognition as computation (adopting David Marr's paradigm)—to the navigation task. After comparing modern Western navigation with the method practiced in Micronesia, Hutchins explores the computational and cognitive properties of systems that are larger than an individual. He then turns to an analysis of learning or change in the organization of cognitive systems at several scales. Hutchins's conclusion illustrates the costs of ignoring the cultural nature of cognition, pointing to the ways in which contemporary cognitive science can be transformed by new meanings and interpretations. A Bradford Book
Download or read book Brain Evolution and Cognition written by Gerhard Roth and published by Wiley-Spektrum. This book was released on 2001 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Categorizing Cognition written by Graeme S. Halford and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2014-12-19 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A proposal for a categorization of cognition based on core properties of the constituent processes that integrates theory and empirical findings across domains. All sciences need ways to classify the phenomena they investigate; chemistry has the periodic table and biology a taxonomic system for classifying life forms. These classification schemes depend on conceptual coherence, demonstrated correspondences across paradigms. This conceptual coherence has proved elusive in psychology, although recent advances have brought the field to the point at which it is possible to define the type of classificatory system needed. This book proposes a categorization of cognition based on core properties of constituent processes, recognizing correspondences between cognitive processes with similar underlying structure but different surface properties. These correspondences are verified mathematically and shown not to be merely coincidental. The proposed formulation leads to general principles that transcend domains and paradigms and facilitate the interpretation of empirical findings. It covers human and nonhuman cognition and human cognition in all age ranges. Just as the periodic table classifies elements and not compounds, this system classifies relatively basic versions of cognitive tasks but allows for complexity. The book shows that a more integrated, coherent account of cognition would have many benefits. It would reduce the conceptual fragmentation of psychology; offer defined criteria by which to categorize new empirical results; and lead to fruitful hypotheses for the acquisition of higher cognition.
Download or read book Semantic Cognition written by Timothy T. Rogers and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A mechanistic theory of the representation and use of semantic knowledge that uses distributed connectionist networks as a starting point for a psychological theory of semantic cognition.
Download or read book From Neuropsychology to Mental Structure written by Tim Shallice and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1988-10-28 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a cognitive neuropsychologist, Tim Shallice considers the general question of what can be learned about the operation of the normal cognitive system from the study of the cognitive difficulties arising from neurological damage and disease. He distinguishes two types of theories of normal function - primarily modular and primary non-modular - and argues that the problems of making valid inferences about normal function from studies of brain-damaged subjects are more severe for the latter. He first analyzes five well-researched areas in which some modularity can be assumed: short-term memory, reading, writing, visual perception, and the relation between input and output language processing. His aim is to introduce the methods about normal function mirror ones derived directly from studies of normal subjects and indeed at times preceded them. He then more theoretically examines these inferences, from group studies and individual case studies to modular and non-modular systems. Finally, he considers five areas where theories of normal function are relatively undeveloped and neuropsychology provides counterintuitive phenomena and guides to theory-building: the organization of semantic systems, visual attention, concentration and will, episodic memory, and consciousness.
Download or read book Brain Aging written by David R. Riddle and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2007-04-19 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recognition that aging is not the accumulation of disease, but rather comprises fundamental biological processes that are amenable to experimental study, is the basis for the recent growth of experimental biogerontology. As increasingly sophisticated studies provide greater understanding of what occurs in the aging brain and how these changes occur
Download or read book Cortex and Mind written by Joaquin M. Fuster and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a unique synthesis of the current neuroscience of cognition by one of the world's authorities in the field. The guiding principle to this synthesis is the tenet that the entirety of our knowledge is encoded by relations, and thus by connections, in neuronal networks of our cerebral cortex. Cognitive networks develop by experience on a base of widely dispersed modular cell assemblies representing elementary sensations and movements. As they develop cognitive networks organize themselves hierarchically by order of complexity or abstraction of their content. Because networks intersect profusely, sharing commong nodes, a neuronal assembly anywhere in the cortex can be part of many networks, and therefore many items of knowledge. All cognitive functions consist of neural transactions within and between cognitive networks. After reviewing the neurobiology and architecture of cortical networks (also named cognits), the author undertakes a systematic study of cortical dynamics in each of the major cognitive functions--perception, memory, attention, language, and intelligence. In this study, he makes use of a large body of evidence from a variety of methodologies, in the brain of the human as well as the nonhuman primate. The outcome of his interdisciplinary endeavor is the emergence of a structural and dynamic order in the cerebral cortex that, though still sketchy and fragmentary, mirrors with remarkable fidelity the order in the human mind.
