ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the conceptual issues that lie behind the most popular approach of neuroreductive theory, macroneural connectionist theory (MCT). MCT is a statement of manner in which the action of a system of microscopic neurons and their interactions represent or encode cognitive processes. The implication of this type of theory of macroneural network organization is that the brain mechanisms of even very simple cognitive processes are not localized but are widely distributed throughout the brain. Large portions, if not the whole brain, are presumably involved in any mental activity according to the precepts of the MCT approach to brain organization. The rock-bottom goal in developing an MCT is to determine how particular macroneural patterns of macroscopic interactions might be related to cognitive processes. The chapter also discusses the function-specific theory that implicitly makes a strong theoretical statement that localized activity in a group of function-specific locations in the brain is the psychoneural equivalent of cognition.
