Methodological Issues in Cognitive Neuropsychology

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

SES 99-10931 - Clark Glymour (University of Pittsburgh) "Methodological Issues in Cognitive Neuropsychology" In collaboration with a post-doctoral assistant, the principal investigator will apply results and frameworks from philosophy of science and computer science to a group of methodological problems in cognitive neuropsychology. This work will result in (i) algorithmic characterizations of which mental processing models are indistinguishable on the basis of behavioral evidence of brain damaged subjects; (ii) characterizations of the reliability of inference to mental processing models from individual and aggregated (in various ways) data from the behavior of brain damaged subjects; (iii) characterizations of mathematically possible data sets and conditions on explanation under which lesioned neural nets cannot explain imagined normal and brain damaged behavior; and (iv) studies of strategies for using imaging and evoked response potential data for inferences to features of cognitive processing architecture.