Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-kp629 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-31T12:07:39.101Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Integrative Modeling and the Role of Neural Constraints

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Daniel A. Weiskopf
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Neuroscience constrains psychology, but stating these constraints with precision is not simple. Here I consider whether mechanistic analysis provides a useful way to integrate models of cognitive and neural structure. Recent evidence suggests that cognitive systems map onto overlapping, distributed networks of brain regions. These highly entangled networks often depart from stereotypical mechanistic behaviors. While this casts doubt on the prospects for classical mechanistic integration of psychology and neuroscience, I argue that it does not impugn a realistic interpretation of either type of model. Cognitive and neural models may depict different, but equally real, causal structures within the mind/brain.

Information

Type
Unifying the Mind-Brain Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 83 , Issue 5 , December 2016 , pp. 674 - 685
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Alstott, Jeffrey, Breakspear, Michael, Hagmann, Patric, Cammoun, Leila, and Sporns, Olaf. 2009. “Modeling the Impact of Lesions in the Human Brain.” PLoS Computational Biology 5:1–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anderson, Michael L. 2007a. “Massive Redeployment, Exaptation, and the Functional Integration of Cognitive Operations.” Synthese 159:329–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Michael L. 2007b. “The Massive Redeployment Hypothesis and the Functional Topography of the Brain.” Philosophical Psychology 20:143–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Michael L. 2010. “Neural Reuse: A Fundamental Organizational Principle of the Brain.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33:245–66.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anderson, Michael L. 2014. After Phrenology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Michael L., and Penner-Wilger, Marcie. 2013. “Neural Reuse in the Evolution and Development of the Brain: Evidence for Developmental Homology?” Developmental Psychobiology 55:42–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anderson, Michael L., and Pessoa, Luiz. 2011. “Quantifying the Diversity of Neural Activations in Individual Brain Regions.” In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, ed. Carlson, L., Hölscher, C., and Shipley, T., 2421–26. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Butler, Keith. 1994. “Neural Constraints in Cognitive Science.” Minds and Machines 4:129–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cabeza, Roberto, and Nyberg, Lars. 2000. “Imaging Cognition II: An Empirical Review of 275 PET and fMRI Studies.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 12:1–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Campbell, John. 2006. “An Interventionist Approach to Causation in Psychology.” In Causal Learning: Psychology, Philosophy, and Computation, ed. Gopnik, Alison and Schulz, Laura E., 58–66. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schulz, Laura E. 2008. “Interventionism, Control Variables and Causation in the Qualitative World.” Philosophical Issues 18:426–45.Google Scholar
Schulz, Laura E. 2010. “Control Variables and Mental Causation.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 110:15–30.Google Scholar
Coltheart, Max. 2001. “Assumptions and Methods in Cognitive Neuropsychology.” In Handbook of Cognitive Neuropsychology, ed. Rapp, B., 3–21. Philadelphia: Psychology.Google Scholar
Craver, Carl F. 2005. “Beyond Reduction: Mechanisms, Multifield Integration and the Unity of Neuroscience.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 36:373–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Schutter, Erik, ed. 2010. Computational Modeling Methods for Neuroscientists. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Friston, Karl J. 1997. “Imaging Cognitive Anatomy.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 1:21–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, David M., and Craver, Carl F.. 2011. “The Explanatory Force of Dynamical and Mathematical Models in Neuroscience: A Mechanistic Perspective.” Philosophy of Science 78:601–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lenartowicz, Agatha, Kalar, Donald, Congdon, Eliza, and Poldrack, Russell A.. 2010. “Towards an Ontology of Cognitive Control.” Topics in Cognitive Science 2:678–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lloyd, Dan. 2000. “Terra Cognita: From Functional Neuroimaging to the Map of the Mind.” Brain and Mind 1:93–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLaughlin, Brian P., and Warfield, Ted. 1994. “The Allure of Connectionism Reexamined.” Synthese 101:365–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrison, Margaret. 2000. Unifying Scientific Theories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poldrack, Russell A. 2006. “Can Cognitive Processes Be Inferred from Neuroimaging Data?” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10:59–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Poldrack, Russell A. 2010. “Mapping Mental Function to Brain Structure: How Can Cognitive Neuroimaging Succeed?” Perspectives on Psychological Science 5:753–61.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Silberstein, Michael, and Chemero, Anthony. 2014. “Constraints on Localization and Decomposition as Explanatory Strategies in the Biological Sciences.” Philosophy of Science 80:958–70.Google Scholar
Sporns, Olaf. 2011. Networks of the Brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Weiskopf, Daniel A. 2011. “Models and Mechanisms in Psychological Explanation.” Synthese 183:313–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiskopf, Daniel A. Forthcoming. “The Explanatory Autonomy of Cognitive Models.” In Explanation and Integration in Mind and Brain Science, ed. David M. Kaplan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wig, Gagan S., Schlaggar, Bradley L., and Petersen, Steven E.. 2011. “Concepts and Principles in the Analysis of Brain Networks.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1224:126–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Woodward, James. 2013. “Mechanistic Explanation: Its Scope and Limits.” Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 87:39–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar