Refocusing neuroscience: moving away from mental categories and towards complex behaviours

Pessoa, Luiz; Medina, Loreta; Desfilis, Ester

doi:10.1098/rstb.2020.0534

Cited by 65 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 132 publications

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“…Such an attitude of reframing old questions can be taken even further. As Luiz Pessoa, Loreta Medina and Ester Desfilis suggest, it can be used to reconsider many aspects of human psychology [ 56 ]. These authors point out that many of the basic theoretical distinctions used to discuss mental phenomena (e.g.…”

Section: The Importance Of Evolution For Understanding Ourselvesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neuroscience needs evolution

Cisek

Hayden

2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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The nervous system is a product of evolution. That is, it was constructed through a long series of modifications, within the strong constraints of heredity, and continuously subjected to intense selection pressures. As a result, the organization and functions of the brain are shaped by its history. We believe that this fact, underappreciated in contemporary systems neuroscience, offers an invaluable aid for helping us resolve the brain's mysteries. Indeed, we think that the consideration of evolutionary history ought to take its place alongside other intellectual tools used to understand the brain, such as behavioural experiments, studies of anatomical structure and functional characterization based on recordings of neural activity. In this introduction, we argue for the importance of evolution by highlighting specific examples of ways that evolutionary theory can enhance neuroscience. The rest of the theme issue elaborates this point, emphasizing the conservative nature of neural evolution, the important consequences of specific transitions that occurred in our history, and the ways in which considerations of evolution can shed light on issues ranging from specific mechanisms to fundamental principles of brain organization. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Systems neuroscience through the lens of evolutionary theory’.

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Section: The Importance Of Evolution For Understanding Ourselvesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neuroscience needs evolution

Cisek

Hayden

2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…The second general problem is that these approaches rely on the assumption that cognitive operations can be abstracted and encapsulated by stable and context independent mental state concepts such as “attention” or “cognitive control” ( Pessoa et al, 2022 )—i.e., that, for example, cognitive control measured at one time and using one paradigm relates meaningfully to cognitive control measured using a different type of paradigm, and cognitive control as it is deployed in ecological contexts ( Campbell, 1957 ; Neisser, 1977 ; Broadbent, 1993 ; Kingstone et al, 2003 , 2008 ; Doebel, 2020 ). In fact, it is rarely, if ever, tested whether experimental simulacra do actually mimic the real-world cognitive operation that they were designed to imitate (e.g., whether people who perform better at an experimental simulation of inhibition actually show better inhibition in real-world settings) ( Sonkusare et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Introduction – the Problem: Most Current Approaches To Study...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, such abstract concepts may rarely—if ever—strictly correspond to distinct neural structures (e.g., there is no strict boundary at the neural level between “emotions” and “cognition”) ( Pessoa et al, 2022 ); rather, neural architectures appear to be geared toward solving specific problems that depend on the characteristics of the world that cognitive agents live and develop in Pessoa et al (2022) . In other words, although mental state concepts constitute useful shortcuts to talk about cognitive operations, understanding how neural systems support behavior requires research that documents how cognitive agents solve specific real-world problems.…”

Section: Introduction – the Problem: Most Current Approaches To Study...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Studying the Developing Brain in Real-World Contexts: Moving From Castles in the Air to Castles on the Ground

Wass

Goupil

2022

Front. Integr. Neurosci.

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Most current research in cognitive neuroscience uses standardized non-ecological experiments to study the developing brain. But these approaches do a poor job of mimicking the real-world, and thus can only provide a distorted picture of how cognitive operations and brain development unfold outside of the lab. Here we consider future research avenues which may lead to a better appreciation of how developing brains dynamically interact with a complex real-world environment, and how cognition develops over time. We raise several problems faced by current mainstream methods in the field, before briefly reviewing novel promising approaches that alleviate some of these issues. First, we consider research that examines perception by measuring entrainment between brain activity and temporal patterns in naturalistic stimuli. Second, we consider research that examines our ability to parse our continuous experience into discrete events, and how this ability develops over time. Third, we consider the role of children as active agents in selecting what they sample from the environment from one moment to the next. Fourth, we consider new approaches that measure how mutual influences between children and others are instantiated in suprapersonal brain networks. Finally, we discuss how we may reduce adult biases when designing developmental studies. Together, these approaches have great potential to further our understanding of how the developing brain learns to process information, and to control complex real-world behaviors.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, such abstract concepts may rarely -if ever -strictly correspond to distinct neural structures (e.g., there is no strict boundary at the neural level between "emotions" and "cognition") (Pessoa et al, 2022); rather, neural architectures appear to be geared towards solving specific problems that depend on the characteristics of the world that cognitive agents live and develop in (Pessoa et al, 2022). In other words, although mental state concepts constitute useful shortcuts to talk about cognitive operations, understanding how neural systems support behaviour requires research that documents how cognitive agents solve specific real-world problems.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Studying the developing brain in real-world contexts: moving from castles in the air to castles on the ground.

Wass¹,

Goupil²

2022

Preprint

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Most current research in cognitive neuroscience uses reductionist, standardised experimental simulacra to study the developing brain. But these approaches do a poor job of mimicking the real-world, and thus can only provide a distorted picture of how cognitive operations and brain development unfold outside of the lab. Here we consider future research avenues which may lead to a better appreciation of how developing brains dynamically interact with a complex real-world environment, and how cognition develops over time. We raise several problems faced by current mainstream methods in the field, before briefly reviewing novel promising approaches that alleviate some of these issues. First, we consider research that examines passive perception by measuring entrainment between brain activity and temporal patterns in the environment. Second, we consider research that examines our ability to parse our continuous experience into discrete events, and how this ability develops over time. Third, we consider the role of children as active agents in selecting what they sample from the environment from one moment to the next. Fourth, we consider the potential of new approaches to measure how mutual influences between children and others are instantiated in suprapersonal brain networks. Finally, we discuss how we may reduce adult biases when designing developmental studies. Together, these approaches have great potential to further our understanding of how the developing brain learns to process information, and to control complex real-world behaviours.

show abstract

Refocusing neuroscience: moving away from mental categories and towards complex behaviours

Cited by 65 publications

References 132 publications

Neuroscience needs evolution

Neuroscience needs evolution

Studying the Developing Brain in Real-World Contexts: Moving From Castles in the Air to Castles on the Ground

Studying the developing brain in real-world contexts: moving from castles in the air to castles on the ground.

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