ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by placing a number of philosophical and scientific approaches to the mind and brain in a historical perspective. Cognitive neuroscience is a bridging discipline between cognitive science and cognitive psychology. The term cognition collectively refers to a variety of higher mental processes such as thinking, perceiving, imagining, speaking, acting and planning. An alternative approach to the mind–body problem that is endorsed by many contemporary thinkers is reductionism. The distinction between recording methods and stimulation methods is crucial in cognitive neuroscience. Another distinction that has been used to contrast cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience is that between software and hardware, respectively. Different regions of the brain are specialized for different functions. The modern foundations of cognitive psychology lie in the computer metaphor of the brain and the information-processing approach, popular from the 1950s onwards. Direct electrical stimulation of the brain in humans is rarely carried out as a research tool, although it has some therapeutic uses.
