ABSTRACT
In the past twenty years, cognitive neuroscience has emerged as a discipline in its own right (see Gazzaniga 1995). This area has witnessed technological advances such as functional brain imaging, sensitive electrophysiological measurement of evoked potentials, and the rigorous study of patients with neuropsychological deficits. In the past, the field of cognitive psychology has remained somewhat insulated from findings in systems-level neuroscience. Neuroscientific studies using animal models could provide insight into basic psychological mechanisms but could not be readily applied to questions about topics like language and consciousness. Researchers in cognitive psychology have concentrated on the analysis of behaviour to study the mind, and without doubt, this approach continues to be extremely important in that the workings of the mind are still far from being understood. However, precisely because of the difficulty of the questions in cognitive psychology, it makes sense to draw information from all available sources, including information about human brain function. Cognitive neuroscience can provide important constraints on psychological models.
