keyword
cognitive neuroscience
Cognitive neuroscience is an interdisciplinary scientific field that investigates the biological and neural mechanisms underlying human cognition, thought, and behavior. Combining principles and methods from cognitive psychology, neurobiology, and computational science, it explores how the physical structure and physiological activity of the brain give rise to mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, language, and decision-making. Researchers in this discipline employ a variety of experimental techniques, including functional neuroimaging, electrophysiology, and behavioral testing, to determine how mental representations and cognitive processes map onto patterns of neural activity.
2 items
Introduction to Psychology & Neuroscience (2nd Edition)
Added
2026-09-25
Beyond Mind-Reading: Multi-Voxel Pattern Analysis of fMRI Data
Kenneth A. Norman, Sean M. Polyn, Greg J. Detre, James V. Haxby
Why you should read this
Introduces a powerful analytical approach that decodes what people are thinking, perceiving, or remembering by recognizing patterns across multiple brain regions simultaneously, offering unprecedented sensitivity for tracking how the brain represents and processes information moment-by-moment.
A key challenge for cognitive neuroscience is determining how mental representations map onto patterns of neural activity. Recently, researchers have started to address this question by applying sophisticated pattern-classification algorithms to distributed (multi-voxel) patterns of functional MRI data, with the goal of decoding the information that is represented in the subject’s brain at a particular point in time. This multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) approach has led to several impressive feats of mind reading. More importantly, MVPA methods constitute a useful new tool for advancing our understanding of neural information processing. We review how researchers are using MVPA methods to characterize neural coding and information processing in domains ranging from visual perception to memory search.
Added
2026-02-21