Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:17:17.212Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Functional Neuroimages Fail to Discover Pieces of Mind in the Parts of the Brain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Guy C. Van Orden  and
Kenneth R. Paap
Guy C. Van Orden*
Affiliation:
Arizona State University
Kenneth R. Paap
Affiliation:
New Mexico State University
*
†Van Orden: Cognitive Systems Group, Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1104. Paap: Psychology Department, 3452, New Mexico State University, PO Box 30001, Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The method of positron emission tomography (PET imaging) illustrates the circular logic popular in subtractive neuroimaging and linear reductive cognitive psychology. Both require that strictly feed-forward, modular, cognitive components exist, before the fact, to justify the inference of particular components from images (or other observables) after the fact. Also, both require a “true” componential theory of cognition and laboratory tasks, before the fact, to guarantee reliable choices for subtractive contrasts. None of these possibilities are likely. Consequently, linear reductive analysis has failed to yield general, reliable, componential accounts.

Type
Symposium: Does Functional Neuroimaging Contribute Toward Our Understanding of Cognition?
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 64 , Issue S4: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1996 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers Dec., 1997 , 1997 , pp. S85 - S94
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

Preparation of this article was funded by an Independent Scientist Award (1 K02 NS 01905) to Guy Van Orden from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

References

Abraham, R. H. and Shaw, C. D. (1992), Dynamics: The Geometry of Behavior. Redwood City, CA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. and Cohen, P. (1975), Applied Multiple Regressioni Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Duhem, P. ([1906] 1954), Aim and Structure of Physical Theory. Reprint. Translated by P. P. Wiener. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Originally published as La Theorie Physique: Son Objet, et sa Structure. Paris: Marcel Riviere & Cie.Google Scholar
Freeman, W. J. (1995), Societies of Brains: A Study in the Neuroscience of Love and Hate. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Frost, R. (in press), “Toward a Strong Phonological Model of Reading: True Issues and False Trails”, Psychological Bulletin.Google Scholar
Gibbs, P. (1996), Strategic Control of Nonlexical Effects in Word Recognition: Testingthe Utility of Pathway Selection. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Arizona State University.Google Scholar
Goodwin, B. (1994), How the Leopard Changed its Spots: The Evolution of Complexity. New York: Scribner.Google Scholar
Klein, G. S. (1964), “Semantic Power Measured through the Interference of Words with Color-Naming”, American Journal of Psychology 77: 576–588.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mandler, G. (1985), Cognitive Psychology: An Essay in Cognitive Science. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
McClelland, J. L. (1979), “On the Time Relations of Mental Processes: An Examination of Systems of Processes in Cascade”, Psychological Review 86: 287–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyberg, L., Cabeza, R., and Tulving, E. (1996), “Pet Studies of Encoding and Retrieval: The HERA Model”, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 3: 135–148.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peterson, S., Fox, P., Posner, M., Mintun, M., and Raichle, M. E. (1989), “Positron Emission Tomographic Studies of the Processing of Single Words”, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 1: 153–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poeppel, D. (1996), “A Critical Review of PET Studies of Phonological Processing”, Brain & Language 55:322–351.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Posner, M. I. and Raichle, M. E. (1994), Images of Mind. New York: Scientific American Books.Google Scholar
Sternberg, S. (1969), “The Discovery of Processing Stages: Extension of Donders' Method”, Acta Psychologica 30: 276–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Orden, G. C. and Goldinger, S. D. (1994), “Interdependence of Form and Function in Cognitive Systems Explains Perception of Printed Words”, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 20: 1269–1291.Google ScholarPubMed
Van Orden, G. C., Holden, J. C., Podgornik, M. N., and Aitchison, C. S. (1997), When a ROWS is not a ROSE: Null effects and the Absence of Cognitive Structures. (Submitted for publication.)Google Scholar