Read on Twitter
1/ Recently, I have been grappling with the question of what the role of cognitive neuroscience is supposed to be in understanding brain and cognition. What do we learn about cognitive processes with the neural data that the scientific community has accumulated over the years?
2/ Firstly, it appears, that most of the literature is concerned with exp. manipulations of cog. processes (using cog. tasks) and correlational work on the associated neuronal activity. The former can provide informative behav. data on how latent cognitive processes may operate.
3/ This data is especially useful when evaluating computational cognitive models, aiding the mathematical formalization of cognition. Formal models force one to specify theoretical assumptions and arguably make cognitive theories more falsifiable.
4/ Then there is the neural data obtained from brain imaging studies, which can help localizing and delineating neural acitivty associated with the behavioral data (and their corrospondingly assumed latent cognitive processes).
5/ This leads me to the apparent limitations that have made me question the role that cog. neuroscience can play. Following from the above, it seems that little of cognitive neuroscience research is concerned with testing neurobiological theories of cognition.
7/ For testing how cognition is produced by neurobiological processes requires exp. manipulations on the level of these lower-order brain processes. Brain imaging data is too uniformative for providing insights into the causal processes that underly neurocognitive computations.
8/ As a student I've often wondered what use this kind of data has since it doesn't seem to properly inform our understanding of *how* cog. arises. Occ., I'd caught myself reminded of the brain localization delusions of phrenology. But this is certainly an unfair thought to have
9/ Others like @yael_niv have pointed out that there is a unjustified emphasis on neural over behavioral data, and I can agree insofar that the neural data obtain from brain imaging studies is too uniformative for enhancing our understanding of cognition. https://twitter.com/chazfirestone/status/1319173668522643457?s=19
10/ However, I disagree with her assertion that clever behavioral manipulation are sufficient for inferring causality. Not because I don't believe that they can be seen as manipulations on the brain but because the exp. manipulation are barely exhaustive. https://twitter.com/yael_niv/status/1319384106627682304?s=19
11/ When you engage in a cog. task or some other behav. manipulation, your brain processes are indeed manipulated. Yet, without isolating/identifying individual processes&their interaction (from molecular to system-level dynamics), you're unable to test neurobio. theories of cog.
12/ This leads me to the preliminary conclusion that *behavioral* neuroscience with its focus on exp. manipulations of biological variables might be more capable of fulfilling this role in developing and testing neurobiological theories of cognition.
13/ While limited and guided by ethical considerations, we should strive to develop better neurophysiological techniques for the experimental behavioral research with humans (as well as non-human animals).
14/ To me it appears, that there should be a stronger focus on behavioral (neuroscience) research at the cost of fewer correl. brain imaging studies because the latter, as here argued, doesn't provide sufficiently informative data about the causal origin of cognitive processes.
If anyone stumbles over this thread, I would appreciate some critical reflection on my ruminations. I have not thought everything through in detail, these are more some rather spontaneous thoughts that have made me question what discipline I want to work in.
