It has been quite a while since I have read such research, and more recently I have read only summaries: But, it seems to me, that results showing neuroscience correlates with some behaviors or responses provides simply "some support" for psychological interpretations -- and, while this support is very welcome, it is really impossible to gauge how important the findings are AND (relatedly) what they really mean.
I know many psychologists are looking to neuroscience to [perhaps, "sufficiently"] bolster their views and positions, but we will never get away from the fact that we must know a lot more about behavior to know what the neuroscience means. I think neuroscience will have more to gain from good detailed observational psychology (if this ever happens) than what psychology gains from findings of neuroscience correlates.
Behaviors relate to behavior patterns (and these to other behavior patterns) potentially more clearly than behavior relates to internal neuroscience correlates. That is part of my view.
Dear Brad Jesness,
I agree with you that neuroscientific data must be complemented by data from behavioral psychology. Neuroscientific methods are ideal to reveal the functional architecture underlying cognitive processes and provide insights in fine-grained mechanisms. Behavioral psychology is important to relate internal cognitive processes to external behavior. I think that both neuroscientific and behavioral data is necessery to get a complete picture of the humand mind.
Dear Markus Kiefer
I do NOT think neuroscience methods "provide insights in fine-grained mechanisms". IN FACT, I think they are INCAPABLE of doing this without a greater understanding of overt BEHAVIOR PATTERNS (
Dear colleagues,
I dare intruding in this debate because the question of relating observable behaviours to neural processes is a very intriguing one and I've had the opportunity to say and hypothesize something about it in a specific sector.
By the one hand, I recognize what Brad says about the role of behaviour observation, given that my et al.'s 2015 work ("Contributions to a neurophysiology of meaning") proposed hypotheses on written message interpretation on the basis of field direct observations but reaching the Nervous System level.
By the other hand, I am certain that laboratory (especially fMRI) neuroscience can bring important contributions to cognitive processes knowledge; however, I think that some clarification is needed, in order to completely express such potential.
The first kind of clarification is of a philosophical nature: I can't help but asking myself if expressions like "neural correlates", "grounding of concepts [on neurons]", "neural representations" and so on are actually a clear defined and shared lexicon or a common language approximation aimed to simplify discussion. Maybe it is my fault, but I cannot anchor such expressions to any clear figuration.
The second kind of clarification is of physiological nature: we say "brain" and we are convinced we speak of the same thing; however, the literature I've been reading since several years shows that "brain" is usually intended as "brain cortex". It is not the same thing. What about the deep part of the brain (the sub-cortical one) and its role in human behaviour? What about the automatic (unconscious) reactions influence on human behaviour? What kind of relations between what we measure at cortex level and the possible combination of events involved in the route from a stimulus (which could even be a word) to an observable behaviour?
Thank you very much and best regards
Roberto
Dear Brad,
I agree with you that behavioral measures are important to interpret neuroscientific findings. On the other hand, there are some, admittedly few instances of neuroscientific studies, in which the experimental design allows inferences about cognitive processes without recording behavioral responses. This of course requires extensive previous investigations combining neuroscientific and behavioral measures.
You must have misinterpreted my statements: I have never claimed that internal cognitive processes are identified prior to behavior. The contrary is true according to my view. In behavioral psychology, behavior is used to infer cognitive processes. In cognitive neuroscience, behavior is used to interpret brain activation in terms of reflection of cognitive processes. In any case, behavior is important to draw inferences.
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