Preface

Welcome to the fourth edition! When cognitive neuroscience emerged in the late 1970’s, it remained to be seen if this new field would have “legs.” Today, the answer is clear: the field has blossomed in spectacular fashion. Cognitive neuroscience is well represented at all research universities, providing researchers and graduate students with the tools and opportunities to develop the interdisciplinary research programs that are the mainstay of the field. Multiple journals, some designed to cover the entire field, and others specialized for particular methodologies or research themes, have been launched to provide venues to report the latest findings. The number of papers rises at an exponential rate. The annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society has also flourished. While 400 pilgrims attended the first meeting in 1993, the 20th anniversary meeting in 2013 was attended by almost 2000 people.

The fundamental challenge we faced in laying the groundwork for our early editions was to determine the basic principles that make cognitive neuroscience distinct from physiological psychology, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, or neuropsychology. It is now obvious that cognitive neuroscience overlaps with, and synthesizes, these disciplinary approaches as researchers aim to understand the neural bases of cognition. In addition, however, cognitive neuroscience is increasingly informing and informed by disciplines outside the mind-brain sciences, as exemplified by our new Chapter 14: “Consciousness, Free Will, and the Law”

As in previous editions, we continue to seek a balance between psychological theory, with its focus on the mind, and the neuropsychological and neuroscientific evidence about the brain that informs this theory. We make liberal use of patient case studies to illustrate essential points and observations that provide keys to understanding the architecture of cognition, rather than providing an exhaustive description of brain disorders. In every section, we strive to include the most current information and theoretical views, supported by evidence from the cutting-edge technology that is such an important part of cognitive neuroscience. In contrast to purely cognitive or neuropsychological approaches, this text emphasizes the convergence of evidence that is a crucial aspect of any science, particularly studies of higher mental function. We also provide examples of research using computational techniques to complete the story.

Teaching students to think and ask questions like cognitive neuroscientists is a major goal of our text. As cognitive neuroscientists, we examine mind–brain relationships with a wide range of techniques, such as functional and structural brain imaging, neurophysiological recording in animals, human EEG and MEG recording, brain stimulation methods, and analysis of syndromes resulting from brain damage. We highlight the strengths and weaknesses of these methods to demonstrate how these techniques must be used in a complementary manner. We want our readers to learn what questions to ask, how to choose the tools and design experiments to answer these questions, and how to evaluate and interpret the results of those experiments. Despite the amazing progress of the neurosciences, the brain remains a great mystery, with each insight inspiring new questions. For this reason, we have not used a declarative style of writing throughout the book. Instead, we tend to present results that can be interpreted in more than one way, helping the reader to recognize that there are possible alternative interpretations.

Since the first edition, there have been many major developments, both methodological and theoretical. There has been an explosion of brain imaging studies—almost 1,500 a year for the last decade. New technologies, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation, diffusion tensor imaging and optogenetics have been added to the arsenal of the cognitive neuroscientist. New links to genetics, comparative anatomy, computation and robotics have emerged. Parsing all of these studies and deciding which ones should be included has been a major challenge for us. We firmly believe that technology is a cornerstone of scientific advancement. As such, we have felt it essential to capture the cutting-edge trends in the field, while keeping in mind that this is an undergraduate survey text that needs to be completed in a quarter or semester.

The first three editions have provided compelling evidence that our efforts have led to a highly useful text for undergraduates taking their first course in cognitive neuroscience, as well as a concise reference volume for graduate students and researchers. Over 400 colleges and universities worldwide have adopted the text. Moreover, instructors tell us that in addition to our interdisciplinary approach, they like that our book has a strong narrative voice and offers a manageable number of chapters to teach in a one-semester survey course.

Still, we have had to do some pruning for the 4th edition in order to present both the foundations of cognitive neuroscience and the latest the field has to offer; in general, we have opted to take a leaner approach than in previous editions, providing the necessary updates on new developments while streamlining the descriptions of experimental results. Inspired by feedback from our adopters, we have also made some changes to make the text even more user friendly. Highlights of the fourth edition include the following:

• All the chapters have been rewritten. In order to add new findings but maintain a reasonable sized text, we had to trim out some of the older material and streamline our presentations. Careful attention has been paid to the chapter’s heading and subheading structure to provide a roadmap to the essential themes of the chapters.
• The illustrations have been redrawn. The stunning new art program is designed to facilitate student understanding, and now includes a “hand-pointer” feature that draws students’ attention to the most important figure elements.
• We have added an “anatomical orientation” figure at the beginning of each chapter to orient students to the brain regions that will be major players throughout the chapter.
• Key points to remember have been interspersed after major sections throughout the text instead of being stacked at the end of the chapter.
• The chapters on cellular mechanisms and neuroanatomy have been combined, providing a concise presentation of the basic concepts that are most essential for cognitive neuroscience. The focus of the field is more at the systems level of analysis, and this has led us to leave the more detailed study of cellular and molecular topics to texts dedicated to these levels of analysis.
• We have eliminated the chapter on the evolutionary perspective and instead have sprinkled discussions of this topic throughout the text.
• An extensive section on decision-making has been added to the cognitive control chapter.
• The chapter on emotion has been expanded and includes extensive discussion of the fine interplay between affective and cognitive neurosciences.
• We have added a new chapter that tackles the important, yet elusive problem of consciousness, taking on issues such as free will and how cognitive neuroscience can have practical applications for informing public policy and the law.

The new edition also offers an even more generous suite of instructor ancillaries:

• Lecture PowerPoints, new to this edition, feature text and images as well as instructor-only lecture notes and suggestions.
• Art PowerPoints and JPEGs provide all the art and tables from the book in easily adaptable formats.
• The Test Bank for Cognitive Neuroscience, Fourth Edition, has been developed using the Norton Assessment Guidelines. Each chapter of the Test Bank includes five question types classified according to the first five levels of Bloom’s taxonomy of knowledge types.
• The Studying the Mind DVD includes exclusive Norton interviews with leading cognitive neuroscience researchers on key aspects of how we study the human mind.
• The Cognitive Neuroscience Patient Interviews DVD presents original footage of interviews with patients suffering from a variety of cognitive and neurological disorders, and bring to life the cognitive models, concepts, and research methodologies discussed in the text. Several new videos have been added for the fourth edition.

As with each edition, this book has required a laborious interactive effort among the three of us, along with extensive discussions with our colleagues, our students, and our reviewers. The product has benefited immeasurably from these interactions. Of course we are ready to modify and improve any and all of our work. In our earlier editions, we asked readers to contact us with suggestions and questions, and we do so again. We live in an age where interaction is swift and easy. We are to be found as follows: gazzaniga@psych.ucsb.edu; mangun@ucdavis.edu; ivry@socrates.berkeley.edu.

Good reading and learning!