Week 2: Foundations and Methods in Cognitive Neuropsychology

1.  Coltheart, M. (2001). Assumptions and methods in cognitive neuropsychology. In B. Rapp (Ed.), The Handbook of Cognitive Neuropsychology: What Deficits Reveal About the Human Mind, Philadelphia: Psychology Press.

2.  McCloskey, M. (2001). The future of cognitive neuropsychology. In B. Rapp (Ed.), The Handbook of Cognitive Neuropsychology: What Deficits Reveal About the Human Mind, Philadelphia: Psychology Press.

3.  Robertson, L. C., Knight, R. T., Rafal, R. & Shimamura, A. P. (1993). Cognitive neuropsychology is more than single-case studies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 19(3), 710-717.

4.  McCloskey, M. (1993). Theory and evidence in cognitive neuropsychology: A "radical" response to Robertson, Knight, Rafal and Shimamura (1993), Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition,19(3), 718-734.

Questions for Critical Thinking (Select one to answer in 1-2 pages; DUE JAN 25).

1. Imagine that you are on a grant review panel for NIH's cognitive neuropsychology division. There are limited funds for grants this year due to the Bush administration's tax cuts. You are currently in the position of providing the tie-breaking decision about whether to fund Grant A or Grant B.  Grant A describes a set of studies centered around further investigation of a patient with a stroke affecting most of the territory of the right middle cerebral artery. In pilot studies, this patient demonstrated a never-before-seen deficit in the ability to rotate mental images counterclockwise (clockwise rotation is unimpaired). Grant B describes a group study of patients with damage in the left parietal area, where the area of greatest lesion overlap was in the right inferior parietal lobule, an area that PET studies have shown is generally involved in mental rotation (although some of the patient's lesions extend outside this area). Grant B also wants to test the mental rotation abilities of these patients further, including a comparison of clockwise vs. counterclockwise rotation ability. How do these studies differ in what they can ultimately show about the cognitive and neural processes underlying mental rotation? Assuming all other aspects of the grants being equal, and therefore the main difference being in the use of the single-case-study vs. group approach, which grant would you decide to fund? Carefully explain your decision by pointing out the flaws in the one you vote against and the benefits of the one that you vote for (although even this one may have flaws). Be sure to refer the arguments presented in the assigned reading.

2. Why are double dissociations viewed as more powerful than single dissociations in identifying cognitive modules that are (at least partially) functionally and anatomically independent? Are double dissociations necessary and sufficient to demonstrate modular independence? Explain your answer. Is modular independence necessary and sufficient for building a cognitive theory of a particular function? Explain your answer.

Don't forget to submit a question of your own!

Supplemental Readings

1.  Caramazza, A. (1984). The logic of neuropsychological research and the problem of patient classification in aphasia. Brain & Language, 21, 9-20.

2.  Coltheart, M. (1999). Modularity and cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 3, 115-120.

3.  Sitton, M., Mozer, M. C., & Farah, M. J. (2000). Superadditive effects of multiple lesions in a connectionist architecture: implications for the neuropsychology of optic aphasia. Psychological Review, 107(4), 709-34.

4.  Farah, Martha J. (1994). Neuropsychological inference with an interactive brain: A critique of the "locality" assumption. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 17(1), 43-104.

5.  Fodor, J. A. (1983). The Modularity of Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

6.  Kosslyn, S. M., & Intrilligator, J. M. (1992). Is cognitive neuropsychology plausible? The perils of sitting on a one-legged stool. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 4, 96-106.

7.  Lloyd, D. (2000). Virtual lesions and the not-so-modular brain, Journal of the International Neuropsychologial Society, 6(5), 627-35.

8.  Moscovitch, M., & Umilta, C. (1990). Modularity and neuropsychology: Modules and central processes in attention and memory. In M. Schwartz, et al. (Eds). Modular deficits in Alzheimer-type dementia. Issues in the biology of language and cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

9.  Plaut, D. C. (1995). Double dissociation without modularity: evidence from connectionist neuropsychology, Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology,17(2), 291-321.