Neuroscience and cognitive science

These lectures look at neuroscience specifically from the perspective of the development of cognitive science. Thus up to the mid 20th C we focus on two issues prominent at the interface of neuroscience and psychology: the reflex arc and localisation of brain function.

Gardner (1985) MNS states that neuroscience is the lower limit of cognitive science. In fact between the 1950s and the 1980s the strong program of cognitive science was to study cognition independently of its implementation in the brain (recall Functionalism - secs. , and ). During this period the development of cognitive science and neuroscience proceeded with little dialogue between them. Since about the mid-1980s the trend has been changing, the reasons being:

• Significant progress in neuropsychology.

• Progress in mainstrean neuroscience: new technological tools and experimental techniques for studying the functional structure of the living nervous system in human beings and other animals, which was impossible 40 years ago.

• Increasing recognition of the theoretical and practical limitations of classical top-down approaches to AI, and the rise of bottom-up computational models.

The two concepts from neuroscience which dominated thinking in psychology till the mid-20th C. were:

1. The reflex arc and

2. Localisation of brain function.

   Recently a hotly debated topic in cognitive science has been:

3. Modularity of brain function.

The last howevever is beyond the scope of this introductory course.