The Student's Guide to Cognitive Neuroscience

by Ward, Jamie

• ISBN13: 9781841695358
• ISBN10: 1841695351
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-06-13
• Publisher: Psychology Pres

Summary

Reflecting recent changes in the way cognition and the brain are studied, this book provides a comprehensive and student friendly guide to cognitive neuroscience. Following an introduction to neural structure and function, all the key methods and procedures of cognitive neuroscience are explained with a view to helping students understand how they can be used to shed light on the neural basis of cognition. The second part of the book goes on to present an up-to-date overview of the latest theories and findings in all the key topics in cognitive neuroscience, including; vision, attention, memory, speech and language, numeracy, executive function and social and emotional behaviour. Throughout, case studies, newspaper reports and everyday examples are used to provide an easy way in to understanding the more challenging ideas that underpin the subject. In addition each chapter includes: *Summaries of key terms and points *Example essay questions to aid exam preparation *Recommended furtherreading *Feature boxes exploring interesting and popular questions and their implications for the subject. Written in an engaging style by a leading researcher in the field, this book will be invaluable as a core text for undergraduate modules in cognitive neuroscience. It can also be used as a key text on courses in cognitive psychology, cognitive neuropsychology or brain and behaviour. Those embarking on research will find it an invaluable starting point and reference.

Author Biography

Jamie Ward is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Psychology, University College London

Table of Contents

About the author	p. ix
Preface	p. x
Introducing cognitive neuroscience	p. 2
Cognitive neuroscience in historical perspective	p. 4
Does cognitive psychology need the brain?	p. 10
Does neuroscience need cognitive psychology?	p. 13
Introducing the brain	p. 16
Structure and function of the neuron	p. 18
The gross organization of the brain	p. 22
The cerebral cortex	p. 25
The subcortex	p. 27
The midbrain and hindbrain	p. 30
The electrophysiological brain	p. 32
In search of neural representations: Single-cell recordings	p. 34
Electroencephalography and event-related potentials	p. 37
Mental chronometry in electrophysiology and cognitive psychology	p. 40
Magnetoencephalography	p. 45
The imaged brain	p. 48
Structural imaging	p. 49
Functional imaging	p. 51
From image to cognitive theory: An example of cognitive subtraction methodology	p. 56
Beyond cognitive subtraction	p. 59
Event-related versus blocked designs	p. 64
Analysing data from functional imaging	p. 65
Interpreting data from functional imaging	p. 70
Why do functional imaging data sometimes disagree with lesion data?	p. 72
Is "Big Brother" round the corner?	p. 74
The lesioned brain	p. 78
Dissociations and associations	p. 81
Single case studies	p. 84
Group studies and lesion-deficit analysis	p. 87
Animal models in neuropsychology	p. 91
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)	p. 91
Facilitation, interference and functional integration using TMS	p. 95
The seeing brain	p. 102
From eye to brain	p. 103
Cortical blindness and "blindsight"	p. 107
Functional specialization of the visual cortex beyond V1	p. 109
Recognizing objects	p. 113
Category specificity in visual object recognition?	p. 119
Recognizing faces	p. 120
Vision imagined	p. 124
The spatial brain	p. 128
A spotlight on attention	p. 130
Attending to visual objects: Feature-integration theory	p. 133
Space, attention and the parietal lobes	p. 135
Losing space: Seeing one object at a time	p. 138
Losing half of space: Spatial frames and neglect	p. 140
Remembering space: Does the hippocampus store a long-term map of the environment?	p. 146
The acting brain	p. 152
A basic cognitive framework for movement and action	p. 153
The role of the frontal lobes in movement and action	p. 155
Planning actions: The SAS model	p. 159
Ownership and awareness of actions	p. 162
Action comprehension and imitation	p. 163
Parietofrontal circuits for sensory-motor transformation	p. 164
Using objects and tools	p. 168
Preparation and execution of actions	p. 171
The remembering brain	p. 176
Short-term and working memory	p. 177
Different types of long-term memory	p. 180
Amnesia	p. 183
Memory storage and consolidation: A time-limited role for the hippocampus?	p. 188
Theories of remembering, knowing and forgetting	p. 190
The role of the prefrontal cortex in long-term memory	p. 194
Constructive memory and memory distortions	p. 195
The speaking brain	p. 202
Speech perception	p. 205
Spoken word recognition	p. 212
Semantic memory and the meaning of words	p. 214
Understanding and producing sentences	p. 222
Retrieving spoken words	p. 227
The literate brain	p. 234
Visual word recognition	p. 237
Does understanding text require phonological mediation?	p. 245
Reading aloud: Routes from spelling to sound	p. 245
Spelling and writing	p. 252
Does spelling use the same mechanisms as reading?	p. 257
The numerate brain	p. 260
Universal numeracy?	p. 262
The meaning of numbers	p. 264
Models of number processing	p. 270
Are numbers represented in a visuospatial code?	p. 279
The executive brain	p. 282
Anatomical and functional divisions of the prefrontal cortex	p. 284
Executive functions in practice	p. 286
Accounting for dysexecutive syndrome: How many executive functions?	p. 290
Functional specialization within the lateral prefrontal cortex?	p. 295
The role of the anterior cingulate in executive functions	p. 301
Task switching	p. 302
The social and emotional brain	p. 308
Processing emotions and social cues: Reading faces and reading eyes	p. 310
Processing emotions: A role for somatic responses?	p. 319
Reading minds	p. 324
Antisocial behaviour	p. 330
References	p. 337
Author index	p. 383
Subject index	p. 395
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