Introduction to cognitive neuroscience

Cognitive neuroscience is a branch of neuroscience and biological psychology that focuses on

the neural mechanisms of cognition. Although overlapping with the study of the mind in
cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, with its grounding in such areas as experimental
psychology, neurobiology, brain imaging techniques, physics, and mathematics, is more
concerned with the specific neural mechanisms by which mental processes occur in the brain; the
two perspectives continually exert significant influence on each other. Also called
neurocognition. The term cognition collectively refers to a variety of higher mental processes
such as thinking, perceiving, imagining, speaking, acting and planning. Cognitive neuroscience
is a bridging discipline between cognitive science and cognitive psychology, on the one hand,
and biology and neuroscience, on the other hand. Cognitive neuroscience Aims to explain
cognitive processes in terms of brain-based mechanisms.

Neuropsychological assessment (NPA) is the systematic evaluation of the brain-behavior

relationships in an individual. The purpose of an NPA is to define the client's specific cognitive
strengths and weaknesses and to identify the relationships between the neuropsychological
findings and the client's medical and psychiatric condition. Tools used to complete the NPA are
measures of cognition and intelligence that have been standardized on a neurologically normal
sample. 

Paper and pencil-based assessments

There are various tests like for visual agnosia that are used to assess the patient and analyze the
results to evaluate the behavioral and functional expression of brain dysfunction and identify the
impact of brain injury or disease on the cognitive, sensorimotor, emotional, and general adaptive
capacities of an individual. (Example: Trail Making Test). In these tests the examiner looks at
various aspects like motor movements, ability to draw and understand, ability to copy a picture
or a symbol, ect. One concrete example of this is on drawings of a Greek cross. Most individuals
begin their drawing of the cross at the top and proceed clockwise. Thus, individuals with right-
hemisphere damage must complete their drawing and connect up with their starting point by
working in their impaired hemi spatial field. A number of right-hemisphere-impaired clients
begin their cross drawings at the top, work counterclockwise, and by following this approach
produce adequate figures. When subsequently asking them to redraw the cross by starting at the
top and proceeding clockwise, severely distorted crosses are drawn.

Computer based assessment

Computerized neuropsychological assessment helps neuropsychologists and psychologists to

assess functions relative to possible brain damage using a software. Computerized assessment
are particularly beneficial for cognitive testing due to potential for greater recording accuracy
and precision of timed tasks, easy scoring, and standardized administration without biases. Some
of the software for computer based assessments are:-

PEBL (Psychology Experiment Building Language): is a cross-platform, open source

programming language and execution environment for constructing programs to conduct a wide
range of archetypal psychology experiments. It is entirely free of charge, and may be modified to
suit your needs as long as you follow the terms of the GPL, under which the source code is
licensed PEBL is written primarily in C++, but requires a few other tools and libraries to use.It is
built to work on a variety of computing platforms. Its current version makes use of the SDL,
which is a cross-platform library that compiles natively under Windows. It has been developed
primarily by Shane T. Mueller, Ph.D.

MATLAB: Study and research in psychology and neuroscience generate huge amounts of varied
data. MATLAB enables educators to collect, import, analyze, and visualize such data; and draw
further inferences through models and simulations. Due to its ease of use and extensive
capabilities, psychology and neuroscience departments often incorporate MATLAB into their
curricula and lab work. Educators and researchers have created many resources and developed
best practices for teaching computation that are available to colleagues to adopt and modify for
use in future courses.

COGLAB: CogLab is an Internet-based program written in the Java programming language, that
allows participants to explore aspects of Cognitive Psychology by participating in various
experiments. CogLab is compatible with Windows 10 and Windows 8. It has various
experiments under the domain of attention, perception, neurocognition, sensory memory, short
term memory, working memory, memory processes, metamemory, imagery, speech and
language, concepts and judgement.

CANTAB: Originally developed at the University of Cambridge, the Cambridge

Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) includes highly sensitive, precise and
objective measures of cognitive function, correlated to neural networks. CANTAB tests have
demonstrated sensitivity to detecting changes in neuropsychological performance and include
tests of working memory, learning and executive function; visual, verbal and episodic memory;
attention, information processing and reaction time; social and emotion recognition, decision
making and response control.

CDR computerized assessment system: The CDR system is a computer based cognitive

testing tool, developed to assess both enhancement and impairment of human cognitive
performance. The CDR system's simplicity, sensitivity and specificity makes it acceptable to be
used in clinical trials with either healthy subjects or diseased patient populations. 

Neuroimaging is a branch of medical imaging that focuses on the brain. In addition to diagnosing
disease and assessing brain health, it also focuses on how the brain works and how various
activities impact the brain. this techniques that allow researchers to continuously measure
physiological changes in the human brain that vary as a function of a person’s perceptions,
thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Structural imaging, which deals with the structure of the brain and the identification of large-
scale intracranial disease (such as a tumour), as well as injury.

functional imaging is used to identify brain areas and underlying brain processes that are
associated with performing a particular cognitive or behavioral task. Depending on the type of
signal being analyzed, inferences between the location of brain activity and brain function can
then be determined.

INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOPHYSICS

The psychophysical methods are of critical importance and form the basis of the methodological
procedures in studies of sensation and perception in psychology. They stand for the
quantification of the relations between physical attributes of stimuli and reported sensory
experiences of the organism. With the help of psychophysical methods, we can state, in precise
terms, the ways of variation of sensory experience in correspondence with the variations in
objectively measurable stimuli. The methods involve the statistical treatment of the data. The
boundary value on the stimulus continuum, separating the stimuli that elicits one response, from
the stimuli that elicits required response goes by the name threshold. hence threshold refers to
minimum value on a stimulus dimension that produces a response. the absolute threshold is
defined as the minimal physical stimulus value (or maximal for the upper thresholds) that elicits
a response on 50 per cent of the times. Just noticeable difference (JND) represents the smallest
difference between two stimuli which is just noticeable by the subject. Thus, in order that the
subject should defect the change between the two stimuli, the experimenter has to increase or
decrease one of them by one JND unit. In any sensory area, DL is calculated by presenting the
subject a constant standard stimulus (St) and a variable comparison stimulus (Co). The subject is
first presented with two stimuli, one standard and the other for comparison. To start with, the
subject is presented with a comparison stimulus of a much lower value than the standard. In the
successive trials the experimenter goes on increasing the value of the comparison stimuli in small
steps. A stage is reached when the subject is no longer in a position to distinguish between
Constant stimulus and Standard stimulus. He may report that Constant stimulus and Standard
stimulus are just equal. At this stage, the value of Co has crossed the lower difference threshold.
The experimenter may continue to increase the value. of Constant stimulus in small steps. Again,
the subject reports that he feels the difference between Constant stimulus und Standard stimulus.
This determines his upper threshold value. Method of limits is a psychophysical procedure for
determining the sensory threshold by gradually increasing or decreasing the magnitude of the
stimulus presented in discrete steps. That is, a stimulus of a given intensity is presented to a
participant; if it is perceived, a stimulus of lower intensity is presented on the next trial, until the
stimulus can no longer be detected. If it is not perceived, a stimulus of higher intensity is
presented, until the stimulus is detected. The threshold is the average of the stimulus values at
which there is a detection-response transition (from yes to no, or vice versa). The essence of the
method lies in approaching in gradual steps a particular experience of a subject from a point of
no experience and approaching the absence of the same experience from a point of definite
experience. These two are called the ascending and descending series. Method of Average Error:
The subject manipulates the variable stimulus (SV) in relation to a standard stimulus (SS). In a
typical experiment (like in Muller-Lyer experiment) where the method of average error is
employed, the value of SV is always too higher or lower than the SS so that the subject perceives
the difference between the SV and SS. the subject then decreases or increases the value of SV
continuously in the same direction till he perceives the SV as equivalent to SS. This marks the
end of one trial. At the end of each trial, the error of the difference is noted down and the
experiment is repeated a number of times. Finally, the average error is worked out. Method of
constant stimuli a psychophysical procedure for determining the sensory threshold by randomly
presenting several stimuli known to be close to the threshold. The threshold is the stimulus value
that was detected 50% of the time. Also called constant stimulus method; method of right and
wrong cases. Weber’s Law (1795-1878) Weber studied perceptions of weight and tried to relate
these to actual physical weight. Weber's Law Justnoticeable difference (JND) is a constant across
a sensory modality or Weber's law, also called WeberFechner law, states that the change in a
stimulus that will be just noticeable is a constant ratio of the original stimulus. Example: Weight
is an objective physical property of objects. The greater the weight, the greater the difference
between it and a heavier weight must be in order to be detectable. Helmholtz law Used
experimental methods to study vision and audition. he proposed to use reaction times to
determine the speed of neural impulses. Test response-times for stimuli from the shoulder and
from the ankle. Nerve impulses are slow - 50 meters per sec.

INTRODUCTION TO PERCEPTION

Perception is when one interprets any sensory input meaningfully. Or attaching meaning to
sensory information. One of the classic approaches to perception is multimodal approach, each
object in the surrounding is a distal stimulus, for a living organism to process information about
these stimuli it must first receive the input from any sensory organ. The reception of input or
information and its registration by a sense organ makes up the proximal stimulus. The
meaningful interpretation of the proximal stimulus is the percept. Proximal stimulus is different
from percept as our interpretation of the stimulus is not the same as the real stimulus which is
explained by size constancy, it is the perception of an object as having a fixed size, despite the
change in the size of the visual angle that accompanies changes in distance.

Bottom-up process
The term bottom-up (or data-driven) essentially means that the perceiver starts with small bits of
information from the environment and combines them in various ways to form a percept.
something that takes information about a stimulus (by definition a "lower" level of processing) as
input Bottom-up processes are relatively uninfluenced by expectations or previous learning (the
so-called higher-level processes). Posner and Raichle (1994) argue that bottom-up processes
involve automatic, reflexive processing that takes place even when the perceiver is passively
regarding the information. Some example of bottom-up process is featural analysis and prototype
matching

In top-down (also called theory-driven or conceptually driven) processing, the perceiver's

expectations, theories, or concepts guide the selection and combination of the information in the
pattern-recognition process. The two main concepts in this process are the context effects and
expectations effects. The context in which a pattern or object appears sets up certain expectations
for the perceiver as to what objects or the stimuli is. Top-down, or conceptually driven, processes
are those directed by expectations derived from context or past learning or both.

Top-down processes have to interact with bottom-up processes, otherwise, one would never be
able to perceive anything you were not expecting, and you would always perceive what you
expected to perceive-clearly not what actually happens.

Marr proposes that perception proceeds in terms of several different, special purpose
computational mechanisms, such as a module to analyze color, another to analyze motion, and so
on. Each operates autonomously, without regard to the input from or output to any other module,
and without regard to real-world knowledge. Marr believes that visual perception proceeds by
constructing three different mental representations, or sketches. The first, called a primal sketch,
depicts areas of relative bright ness and darkness in a two-dimensional image as well as localized
geometric structure. This allows the viewer to detect boundaries between areas but not to "know"
what the visual information "means." Once a primal sketch is created, the viewer uses it to create
a more complex representation, called a 2½-D (two-and-a-half-dimensional) sketch. Using cues
such as shading texture, edges, and others, the viewer derives information about what the
surfaces are and how they are positioned in depth relative to the viewer's own vantage point at
that moment Marr proposes that both the primal sketch and the 2½-D sketch rely almost
exclusively on bottom-up processes. Information from real-world knowledge or specific
expectations (that is, top-down knowledge) is incorporated when the viewer constructs the final,
3-D sketch of the visual scene. This sketch involves both recognition of what the objects are and
understanding of the "meaning" of the visual scene. Other examples of top down process
included perceptual learning and the word superiority effect.