Poly-Temporal, Multi-Layered: A Techno-Cognitive Theory of Narrative Experience in Literature

The field of developmental cognitive neuroscience (DCN) examines how the human brain and behavior change over the lifespan, in particular over infancy, childhood, and adolescence. DCN researchers conduct basic research on typical brain development, and/or research on pediatric populations with neurodevelopmental disorders. Developmental cognitive neuroscience is not child's play – it is a complex and challenging, but exciting, area of research. It is highly multidisciplinary, in that it builds on the fields of developmental, cognitive, affective/social, and clinical psychology and neuroscience. DCN research also relies on advances in computer science, physics, and mathematics. Increasingly, as we learn more about the developing human brain, findings from DCN have strong implications for medicine, education, law, public health, and social welfare. The story of this compendium begins with a highly successful conference on neurocognitive development held at UC Berkeley in 2009 – a 3-day event with over 200 attendees and over 60 scientific presentations from around the United States and Europe. I thank Brian Meyer, a graduate student in Psychology at UC Berkeley, for helping me to organize this conference. Following on the heels of this conference, postdoctoral fellow Dr. Elizabeth O'Hare and I solicited submissions to a special issue of Frontiers in Human Neuroscience focused on the developing human brain. Dr. O'Hare deserves my gratitude for helping to handle the peer review of these submissions. This Research Topic includes a selection of empirical and review papers from top DCN researchers, organized into six interrelated sections. Section I examines how our visual and auditory systems develop to support the perception of complex stimuli. Recent DCN research highlights the point that, contrary to common belief, perceptual development is not complete after the first few years of life. Face processing – both the recognition of individuals and of specific emotions – is a particularly challenging problem for the visual system, and continues to improve through adolescence. Section II extends the theme of Section I by exploring in more detail the perception of faces, which is critical for social functioning. This section ends with the exploration of deficits in social functioning after pediatric brain injury, which serves as a bridge from studies of perception to studies of action. Section III examines two key neural changes that underlie shifts in behavior over development. The first is a change in the processing of rewards and feedback, which are powerful motivators of behavior. The second is a change in the ability to control behavioral responses, known as cognitive control or executive function, or more generally as self-regulation. Developmental cognitive neuroscience researchers have begun to use sophisticated network analysis tools to examine developmental changes in the strength of interactions between brain regions in large-scale networks. Section IV explores how these brain networks are influenced by common genetic variation or by the presence of a disorder with a strong hereditary component. Section V features a relatively new area of research within DCN: the exploration of societal influences on brain development. Two of the papers in this section compare neurocognitive function in children from North American and Chinese families. The other two papers review what is known currently about the influences of childhood adversity and socioeconomic status on brain development. Finally, Section VI showcases several new ways of thinking about, and studying, the developing human brain. The first paper is an opinion piece highlighting the relevance to DCN of research at the level of neural circuits. The second paper shows how we can go beyond conventional fMRI imaging analyses to examine changes in brain function at a finer grain using multivariate pattern classification algorithms. In conclusion, this compendium shows us both where the field of DCN is currently, and where it is headed. The advances over the last few years have been breathtaking – and the best is yet to come.

The strength of psychoanalysis has always been its understanding of affect and motivation. Contemporary developments in cognitive neuroscience offer possibilities of integrating sophisticated, experimentally informed models of thought and memory with an understanding of dynamically and clinically meaningful processes. Aspects of contemporary theory and research in cognitive neuroscience are integrated with psychoanalytic theory and technique, particularly theories of conflict and compromise. After a description of evolving models of the mind in cognitive neuroscience, several issues relevant to psychoanalytic theory and practice are addressed. These include the nature of representations, the interaction of cognition and affect, and the mechanisms by which the mind unconsciously forges compromise solutions that best fit multiple cognitive and affective-motivational constraints.

Identifying Cognitive Mechanisms Targeted for Treatment Development in Schizophrenia: An Overview of the First Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia Initiative

In this paper we review our theory of posture‐based motion planning, which emphasizes the fact that a single action may be governed by a number of simultaneous constraints and that motion planning is hierarchical with initial emphasis on the determination of goal postures. We critically review the development of the theory and summarize the sources of evidence for its assumptions. We then relate the theory to other recent developments in cognitive neuroscience ‐ such as the growing importance of ideomotor theory ‐ and discuss possible applications of our theory to sport and exercise science.

Adult cognitive neuroscience employs a wide variety of techniques to investigate a broad range of behavioral and cognitive functions. One prominent area of study is that of executive control, complemented by a smaller but growing literature exploring the developmental cognitive neuroscience of executive control. To date this approach has often compared children with specific developmental disorders, such as ADHD and ASD, with typically developing controls. Whilst these comparisons have done much to advance our understanding of the neural markers that underpin behavioral difficulties at specific time-points in development, we contend that they should leave developmental cognitive neuroscientists wanting. Studying the neural correlates of typical changes in executive control in their own right can reveal how different neural mechanisms characteristic of the adult end-state emerge, and it can therefore inform the adult cognitive neuroscience of executive control itself. The current review addresses the extent to which developmentalists and adult cognitive neuroscientists have tapped this common ground. Some very elegant investigations illustrate how seemingly common processes in adulthood present as separable in childhood, on the basis of their distinctive developmental trajectories. These demonstrations have implications not only for an understanding of changing behavior from infancy through childhood and adolescence into adulthood, but, moreover, for our grasp of the adult end-state per se. We contend that, if used appropriately, developmental cognitive neuroscience could enable us to construct a more mechanistic account of executive control.

Researchers in cognitive neuroscience, developmental cognitive neuroscience, educational psychology, educational technology, education theory, and other related fields collaborate in the emerging field of educational neuroscience, also known as neuroeducation. This interdisciplinary approach aims to explore the connections between psychological processes and education. By integrating basic discoveries in cognitive neuroscience with educational technology, researchers in neuroeducation strive to enhance curricula to foster curiosity and boost confidence levels in learners. The ultimate objective of neuroeducation is to generate both theoretical insights and practical applications that offer a fresh perspective on learning across various disciplines. The development of confidence is closely related to the principles of curiosity and information processing. When people are interested in a topic, they are more likely to seek out information and engage in learning experiences that can lead to deeper understanding. This information process allows people to analyze and understand the information they encounter, which in turn can increase their confidence in their knowledge and abilities. By embracing curiosity and honing their information-processing skills, people can develop a strong self-confidence that empowers them to take new challenges and pursue their goals with determination. This review study on curiosity have uncovered a fascinating insight into its mechanisms. Researchers found that curiosity aligns with a confidence function resembling an inverted U-shape, peaking when individuals have moderate confidence in their knowledge. Moreover, heightened curiosity drives individuals to actively seek out new information, showcasing the profound impact of curiosity on knowledge acquisition. This revelation holds immense promise for understanding human behavior and learning processes. This study focuses on boosting confidence in individuals through the application of curiosity and information knowledge processing techniques to elevate the standards of education and training across both traditional and modern methodologies. The integration of these principles is poised to revolutionize the learning experience, fostering a more dynamic and effective approach to knowledge acquisition and skill development. This innovative strategy holds immense potential to empower learners, educators, and trainers alike, paving the way for a more enriched and impactful educational landscape.

Eye tracking is a popular research tool in developmental cognitive neuroscience for studying the development of perceptual and cognitive processes. However, eye tracking in the context of development is also challenging. In this paper, we ask how knowledge on eye-tracking data quality can be used to improve eye-tracking recordings and analyses in longitudinal research so that valid conclusions about child development may be drawn. We answer this question by adopting the data-quality perspective and surveying the eye-tracking setup, training protocols, and data analysis of the YOUth study (investigating neurocognitive development of 6000 children). We first show how our eye-tracking setup has been optimized for recording high-quality eye-tracking data. Second, we show that eye-tracking data quality can be operator-dependent even after a thorough training protocol. Finally, we report distributions of eye-tracking data quality measures for four age groups (5 months, 10 months, 3 years, and 9 years), based on 1531 recordings. We end with advice for (prospective) developmental eye-tracking researchers and generalizations to other methodologies.

VERTEX2005

Boldly going where no brain has gone: Futures of evolutionary cognitive neuroscience

This chapter discusses the cognitive neuroscience. It provides an overview, charting how different disciplines and methods combined to illuminate how the brain gives rise to mind and cognition. Cognitive neuroscience is an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the neural bases of cognition and behavior. Although cognitive neuroscience, by that name, only emerged in the late 1970s, it draws from a number of fields, including cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, the multiple disciplines of neuroscience, and computational approaches. Finally, computational approaches have been central to advancing theoretical and empirical developments in cognitive neuroscience. Realistic modeling of single cells and small networks has contributed to our understanding of, for example, neural plasticity and attention. Connectionism has provided ways to model large-scale distributed representations and aspects of dynamics. Cognitive neuroscience emerged after the cognitive revolution in psychology, and in particular after cognitive science had already achieved some recognition as an interdisciplinary approach to understanding mind and cognition.

An integration of psychoanalytic theory with contemporary developments in cognitive neuroscience offers a useful perspective on long-standing controversies about the nature of transference, and a better understanding of the precise mechanisms by which transferential processes occur. Contemporary psychoanalytic views of transference are reviewed, and the many processes that constitute transference are described. Two issues that have emerged in different guises for several decades-the role of the analyst in eliciting transference, and the nature of "real" and "transferential" components of the therapeutic relationship-are reconsidered in the light of concepts such as connectionist networks. Although a useful analytic stance is one that allows the patient's enduring dynamics to dominate the analytic field, it is suggested, anonymity is neither a cognitive possibility nor the driving force behind most transference reactions, and the distinction between "real" and "transferential" perceptions is one of therapeutic interest, not of mechanism. Certain features of the analytic situation make some dynamics more likely than others to enter the treatment relationship, notably those related to authority, intimacy and attachment, and sexuality. Transference reactions are best understood as constructed from a combination of the patient's enduring dispositions to react in particular ways under particular conditions; features of the analytic situation and of the analyst; and interactions between patient and analyst. These reactions do not unfold ineluctably from the patient's mind in the consulting room, nor are they cognitive constructions of the patient-analyst dyad or co-constructions of relatively equal partners exerting their influence on the analytic field.

Evolutionary cognitive neuroscience is an emerging and promising new scientific field that combines the meta-theoretical strengths of an evolutionary perspective with the methodological rigor of neuroscience. The purpose of the present research was to quantify and test evolution's influence in neuroscience and cognitive neuroscience journals over time (1987–2006). In Study 1, analyses from a convenience sample of 10 neuroscience journals revealed that the proportion of neuroscience articles mentioning evolution grew significantly over the last 20 years. Moreover, beginning as early as 1990, the average proportion of neuroscience articles mentioning evolution was significantly different from zero. These effects were not moderated by between-journals differences in impact factor (a citation rate index), suggesting that the observed growth was fairly consistent across journals. In Study 2, analyses from a convenience sample of 4 cognitive neuroscience journals revealed that the proportion of cognitive neuroscience articles mentioning evolution neither differed from zero nor grew significantly over time (1987–2006); however, the change-over-time effect size was large. Compared to other research areas, evolution's penetration into cognitive neuroscience articles grew faster than anthropology, economics, and sociology, but not psychology. The implications of evolutionary psychology's increasing role in science in general, and in cognitive neuroscience in particular, are discussed.

In this review, based on recent advances in cognitive neuroscience, the author presents a formulation in which the marked persistence of anorexia nervosa can be usefully understood as a well-ingrained maladaptive habit. The author reviewed the relevant literature on the development and course of anorexia nervosa and interpreted critical features in light of developments in cognitive neuroscience. Anorexia nervosa is a well characterized disorder with remarkable persistence both across history and among affected individuals. Food restriction, the salient behavioral feature of the disorder, often begins innocently but gradually takes on a life of its own. Over time, it becomes highly entrenched and resistant to change through either psychological or pharmacological treatment. Cognitive neuroscience has described two related but distinct processes that underlie the acquisition of new patterns of behavior, namely, action-outcome and stimulus-response learning. It is likely that both processes are engaged in the development of anorexia nervosa and that stimulus-response learning (that is, habit formation) is critical to the persistence of the dieting behavior. The formulation of the dieting behavior characteristic of anorexia nervosa as a well-entrenched habit provides a basis for understanding the striking persistence of this disorder. This model helps explain the resistance of anorexia nervosa to interventions that have established efficacy in related disorders and implies that addressing the dieting behavior is critical, especially early in the course of the illness, before it has become ingrained.

The first part of this paper discusses the development of Freud's views on memory from the time of the Project up to the formulation of the second topography. Freud's attempts to match his psychological views with an organic model were necessarily inconclusive, but in the process many innovative ideas about memory can be seen to resonate with recent developments in cognitive neuroscience. A brief discussion of perceptual identity, internal perception and Freud's affect theory introduce the central theoretical idea in the second half of the paper, namely that Identification can be seen as a form of memory. Modern memory theory is linked with the superego, following which the author proposes that internal objects might be renamed ‘memory‐objects’ and that these can be understood in terms of the distinction made in cognitive neuroscience between implicit and explicit memory and between different parts of the brain, in particular the amygdala, the basal ganglia and the hippocampus. Klein's ‘memory in feeling’ and the views of Fairbairn and Ogden in relation to the dynamic nature of internal objects are briefly discussed. The paper ends with a few comments on the aberrations of memory and some implications of the implicit memory‐object system.

This review presents a critical appraisal of high-quality studies in the field of developmental cognitive neuroscience, focusing on design issues that are critical for establishing effective educational neuroscience. I argue that cognitive neuroscience studies of cognitive development need to respect important experimental constraints. The use of longitudinal and intervention designs is key. The field needs to move beyond simply studying patterns of brain activation to studying brain mechanisms of information encoding and information processing. Indeed, studies at multiple levels of description are required, combining the assessment of individual differences in neural learning, sensory processing, cognitive processing, and children's behavior. Current evidence suggests that the child brain has essentially the same structures as the adult brain, carrying out essentially the same functions via the same mechanisms. This review demonstrates that neural systems that learn the patterns or regularities in environmental input (via statistical learning) can, in principle, acquire complex cognitive structures like language and conceptual knowledge.