Cognitive neuroscience

Question 1

AO1: Cognitive neuroscience

Answer 1

Cognitive neuroscience has recently emerged as technology has advanced. It uses brain scans such as PETs and fMRIs to to investigate how brain activity may impact internal mental processes e.g. memory.
Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific study of the brains structure, processes and chemistry to see how they’e responsible for internal mental processes.
This is achieved by comparing brain scan image of those with an order to those without to identify structural abnormalities which is the physical location of cognitive processes in the brain. For example those with SZ have enlarged ventricles in the brain compared to a neurotypical group.
Research into cognitive neuroscience was done by Tulving into the different types of LTM. Participants completed tasks using their episodic and semantic memory while being scanned by PET scanners and found that different LTM where found in different areas of the brain. The hippocampus is responsible for episodic memories and the temporal lobe is responsible for semantic memories

Question 2

What are the evaluations for cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 2

1) Scientific methods
2) Lacks mundane realism
3) Practical applications

Question 3

AO3: Scientific methods

Answer 3

A strength of the emergence of cognitive neuroscience is that it uses scientific methods so it has scientific enquiry. It uses objective and empirical techniques such as brains scans e.g. PET scans and fMRIs. These are used to identify which areas of the brain are responsible for specific internal mental processes for example Tulving found the hippocampus was responsible for episodic memories. This raised Psychology’s scientific status and increases the internal validity of the research into the emergence of cognitive neuroscience.

Question 4

AO3: Mundane realism

Answer 4

However the research into cognitive neuroscience can be criticised for lacking mundane realism. This is because it involves watching artificial tasks such as visualising riding a bike when receiving a brain scan to identify the role of the motor cortex in procedural memory. Therefore it is difficult to generalise the findings to everyday life as it may not be representative of how internal mental processes function in everyday life for example when physically riding a bike. This lowers the external validity of the research into cognitve neuroscience.

Question 5

AO3: Practical applications

Answer 5

A strength of the research in cognitive neuroscience is that it has practical applications. This is because the principles of CN that brain scans are used to identify how specific brain regions are responsible for specific internal mental processes allowed the discovery that Broca’s area produces language. Identification of damage to Brica’s area has led to useful interventions such as neurohabilitation which helps recover the lost functions of speech to improve the quality of an individual’s life. Therefore cognitive neuroscience is an important part of applied psychology as it helps to treat people i the real world.