What can neuroimaging tell us about mental function?
Dr. Russell Poldrack, University of Texas at Austin
Monday, April 14 at 5:30 p.m., 118 Psychology
It is commonly argued in cognitive science that neuroimaging can tell us little about the structure or function of the mind. At the same time, neuroimaging is frequently used to make outlandish claims about the presence of particular mental states. I will outline a framework for thinking about how brain imaging can provide insights into mental structure and function, focusing on the use of machine learning techniques to decode mental states from neuroimaging data and the use of large-scale data mining approaches to characterize the function of neural systems. I will also discuss how pattern analysis of fMRI data can provide insights into the nature of mental representations.
Suggested Readings
Poldrack, R. (2011). Inferring mental states from neuroimaging data: From reverse inference to large-scale decoding. Neuron. [.pdf]
Davis, T. & Poldrack, R.(2013). Quantifying the internal structure of categories using a neural typicality measure. Cerebral Cortex. [.pdf]