Controversies in Cognition

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Controversies in Cognition

• Technology and the Mind

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Aims

• To show that the technology of the day is often
  used as the basis for metaphors /or theories
  /or research about the mind/brain.
• To show that the three main conceptions of the
  mind/brain have been brain as machine, little
  focus on the mind mind/brain as computer (brain
  hardware mind software) brain as map for
  the mind (the mind-in-the-brain Beaulieu, 2000).
• To suggest that such metaphors, theories and
  lines of research may initially be helpful but
  may be relied on too heavily and can lead to
  problems.

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Objectives

• To be able to describe the impact of technology
  on how the mind/brain is conceptualised.
• To be able to describe the three main conceptions
  of the mind/brain since the 17th Century and the
  general technology that influenced them.
• To be able to explain some of the benefits and
  disadvantages of using such metaphors, giving
  examples.

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History

• Descartes (1596-1650) distinguished the brain - a
  biological organ - from the mind or soul. The
  mind has no biological reality and therefore
  cannot be studied using scientific methods.
• Henshaw (1987) - Descartes led Psychology down a
  cul-de-sac.
• The study of brains, particularly those of
  animals, was merely the study of machines.
• The brain has long been conceptualised as a kind
  of machine, but what kind of machine has changed
  over time.

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Brain as machine

• Descartes idea of the mind as merely a ghost in
  the machine (Ryle, 1949) gradually lost its
  stranglehold on thinkers.
• In the 17th Century clocks were a popular
  metaphor for the mind/brain.
• As industry developed rapidly during the 19th and
  early 20th Centuries, the idea or metaphor of the
  mind/brain as a kind of steam- or
  electronically-driven machine became more and
  more popular e.g. Freud, Behaviourism and the
  Gestalt school.

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Metaphors for brain/mind

• The metaphors used for the brain/mind tend to be
  driven by the latest technology.
• Phrenology - popularised by Franz Gall and Johann
  Spurzheim, two neuroanatomists.
• All mental and moral faculties, including
  personality, believed to be revealed by the shape
  of the skull.
• Basically mapping the head.
• Now widely accepted to be pseudo-psychology.
• Will compare phrenology with brain mapping
  later - the two have worrying parallels.

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Turning Point No.1 WWII

• Wars are usually accompanied by sudden shifts in
  technological development.
• During and immediately after WWII, the use of
  computers rose dramatically. The computer is an
  information processor - takes in data, re-codes
  it, stores it, produces output. The mind/brain is
  also an information processor - might it not be a
  biological computer?
• The Cognitive Revolution - Metaphor or model of
  mind/brain no longer an industrial S-R machine
  but an information processor, a biological
  computer moving from input to output.

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Mind/Brain as Computer

• Some controversy about whether computer
  functioning really resembles the brain. However?
• 1.The computer model of the mind (software)/brain
  (hardware) revolutionised psychology.
• 2. Developments in technology since the 1980s
  have led to parallel processors (they handle
  multiple things at a time) and it is now accepted
  that the mind/brain is a parallel rather than a
  serial processor. Yet again, changes in
  technology led to, or have been accompanied by,
  changes in models of the mind/brain.

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Turning Point No.2The Decade of the Brain

• Despite progress in many areas of cognition, by
  the late 1980s there was still the mystery of the
  Black Box. Characterised frustration of
  psychologists, that they had reached some
  understanding of human cognition but had also
  reached an impasse.
• Turning point was the arrival of brain scanners,
  machines that could map minds! (McCrone, 1999)

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History of Brain Scanning

• 1. EEG (Electro-Encephalogram). Started by
  Berger, 1929.
• 2. The Angiogram.
• 3. CAT scan (Computerized Axial Tomogram).
  Started in early 1970s.
• 4. PET scan (Positron Emission Tomography).
  Started in 1980s.
• 5. MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging). Started by
  Schulman in the 1980s.
• 6. fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging).
  Since about 1992.

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History of Brain Scanning (cont.)

• All of these technologies/techniques have been
  brought together under the label of brain
  scanning or mapping. They are used to provide
  representations of both activity and structure
  in effect, to make maps of activity in, and
  functions of, the brain by combining data
  obtained from numerous sources.
• Some have suggested this means that the mind can
  finally be studied scientifically others, that
  it means the death of the mind.

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History of Brain Scanning (cont.)

• The time has come where brain function, from
  emotion to mentation, imagery, intention and so
  on is definable, in the relatively crude terms
  that we can define it now, in the substance, the
  material substance of the brain. So things like
  mind and soul and so on become useless, no longer
  of any use in scientific discourse (Senior
  Researcher, trained as a physician)
• So, is brain mapping just neophrenology? Yes
  and no.

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Problems With Mapping the Brain

• Limited progress in answering questions
• about mind/brain A reviewer states that while
• the authors of a popular book on functional
• brain imaging seem to have gone out of their
• way to make the results of PET scans seem
• humanly and psychologically meaningful, - this
• effort can most generously be called a limited
• success. PET scans have indeed provided us with
• images of mind, but only of very few simple
• aspects that, by and large, really do not tell us
  
• very much about how the mind as a whole
• behaves (Goertzel, 1995)

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Problems With Mapping the Brain (cont.)

• 2. Real-world validity
• One must think about what it means to
• the brain to be part of a human subject
• paid to lie in some machine while performing
• more or less stupid tasks (and most of the
• paradigms studied in the actual brain
• function/cognition projects with imaging
• are so simple that the brain will never be
• confronted with them in real life
• (Schmitt, 1995)

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Problems With Mapping the Brain (cont.)

• 3. Traditional science is reductionist
• in nature but this doesnt reflect the
• character of the brain
• (McCrone, 1999)
• The brain is above all an organ that
• is lively, responsive, and acts as a
• whole (McCrone, 1999)

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Problems With Mapping the Brain (cont.)

• 4. The gap between language and
• the brain
• John Hughlings-Jackson (1835-1911)
• and Henry Head (1861-1940) were
• probably the first to recognise this
• gap.

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Problems With Mapping the Brain (cont.)

• The first of these four weaknesses suggests not
  that the endeavour is pointless, just that it
  will take much longer than was first hoped.
• The remaining three suggest that the basic
  metaphor of mapping the mind - the way one might
  map the London Underground, for example - is
  flawed.

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Re-defining the Metaphor as the Technology is
Refined

• I mean, what I do can be seen as a project that
  involves mapping the mind, or brain mapping...
  and Im uneasy, a little bit, about the idea of
  brain mapping, in that it is very much a
  cartographers image, so that there would be a
  discrete location in the brain for these
  functions, and it sort of propagates that notion.
  And it may be that there are no discrete
  locations and the whole idea of mapping is very
  imprecise and that the type of maps you get from
  imaging are very different from the type of maps
  that you get for, say, a walk in the country.

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Re-defining the Metaphor as the Technology is
Refined

• So, for example, if I find that there is a city
  on the map, the city is at those coordinates, I
  wont expect to find that there is another city
  at those coordinates. Its London, its not
  Amsterdam, its not New York. But with the brain,
  you could have an activation in the front of the
  brain, say, the task, it seems to be this process
  that is activated. With another task, you might
  find with that activation a totally different
  task. This is two cities in one location. You
  might say this is the same brain process going
  on. That is one possibility. The other
  possibility is a totally different process, but
  then what that bit of the brain does in terms of
  that same process is not defined by where it is,
  but by what the other bits of the brain, to which
  it is currently engaged in cross-talk with.
  (Senior Researcher, trained as psychiatrist)

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To Conclude...

• The technology of the day has been used as a
  metaphor, as a theory or as a basis for research
  about the mind/brain since the 17th Century and
  probably before that.
• The three main metaphors for the mind/brain
  relationship have been brain as machine, with
  little focus on the mind the brain as computer
  hardware running the software of the mind and
  the brain as a map for the mind (the
  mind-in-the-brain).
• Each metaphor can be initially helpful but, if
  relied on too heavily, can become a cul-de-sac.
  The metaphor/model may need to change or be
  abandoned under these circumstances, or, history
  suggests, it will eventually be replaced as
  technology moves on.

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References/Suggested Reading

• Material for the early part of this lecture (the
• historical part) can be found in most
  introductory
• psychology textbooks but I used the following
• Benson, N. C. and Grove, S. (1998). Psychology
  for Beginners. Cambridge Icon Books.
• Coon, D. (1992). Introduction to Psychology,
  Exploration and Application. 6th edition. St.
  Paul West Publishing Company.
• Eysenck, M. (1998). Introduction and Study
  Skills. In M. Eysenck (ed.) Psychology, an
  Integrated Approach. Essex Longman.
• Gellatly, A. and Zarate, O. (1998). Mind and
  Brain for Beginners. Cambridge Icon Books.

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References/Suggested Reading (cont.)

• Material for the later part of this lecture (the
• brain scan part) can be found in various books on
• cognitive neuroscience but I used the following
• Beaulieu, A. (2000). The Space Inside the Skull.
  Digital Representations, Brain Mapping and
  Cognitive Neuroscience in the Decade of the
  Brain. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of
  Amsterdam.
• McCrone, J. (1999). Going Inside. A Tour Round a
  Single Moment of Consciousness. London Faber and
  Faber.
• Details of other references mentioned in this
• lecture are obtainable from me directly.