I cried because of Cognitive Psychology...

Upon reading and understanding the historical journey of Cognitive psychology, the field of Cognitive Neuroscience sparked my interest, urging me to read more on its area of knowledge. And, what I discovered brought me to tears and I’m not stating that to exaggerate because my family witnessed the way I was moved to tears and obviously, they laughed at me. So, what exactly lead me to tears? And what was the impact of Cognitive Neuroscience on me as an aspiring psychologist? but before that...

What is Cognitive Psychology?

Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as thinking, learning, memory, and problem-solving. It focuses on how people perceive, remember, think, feel, and behave. Cognitive neuroscience is the branch of cognitive psychology that uses brain imaging techniques to understand how the brain works. It looks at how different areas of the brain are involved in various mental activities and processes. By studying cognitive neuroscience we can gain a better understanding of how our minds work and why we behave in certain ways.

The moment I got curious about Cognitive Neuroscience, I immediately searched for a video on it and come across a ted talk by Dr. John Vervaeke, an expert on the field of Cognitive science teaching at the University of Toronto. The ted talk was entitled, Cognitive Science Rescues the Deconstructed Mind, for those of you who are interested of watching it I inserted the link of the video below in the references section. In his talk, he put emphasis on the problem of equivocation in the aspect of defining the mind. He stated that different disciplines such as psychology, linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience, etc. have a variety of definitions of mind and that there is difficulty in communicating with each other, hence, difficulty in understanding one other. He further elaborated that modern science created a fragmented conception of the mind into multiple fragments causing confusion on what truly is the mind. With that, he introduced the role of cognitive science and its importance in integrating what the mind is. I was intrigued by his idea but that ‘somewhat’ revolutionary talk didn’t push me to tears. It was the second video that made my eyes sweat like bullets.

The second video I watched was actually a short introductory clip by Neil Burgess, an expert on Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience teaching at University of London. He talked about the origin of neuroscience, drugs in clinical psychology, and the revolution in molecular biology. Nothing special actually, no dramatic music or graphics, unlike the first video, just a dude talking about cognitive neuroscience but what really caught my attention is when he mentioned that cognitive neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field that aims to connect cognitive psychology to neuroscience.

And, by connecting he is acknowledging that our brain is what generates behavior and neurons are the key element in our brains that do that which actually implies that human behavior leans more toward nature rather than nurture.

Not only that, he said that there is a revolution in molecular biology which is the ability to now record and control the activity of neurons and synapses within the brain with great specificity and that we can further investigate neural mechanisms in the way that we could not before. I was blown away by the information to the point that I was moved to tears. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that man is already at the point where questions about cognitive neural processes and the mechanisms behind them can be answered. I was astonished that maybe all the questions that I find impossible to answer in the field of psychology, the human brain, and behavior can finally be unraveled. Maybe, I’m just a drama queen but what made me choose this field are the unanswerable questions about the human brain and behavior. I was moved to tears by the possibility of knowing the unknown. Yup, definitely a drama queen. lol.

Watch the videos and tell me about your take on this matter. Is this something mind-blowing to you too? Let me know through sending an email or reaching out to my social media channels. I'm excited to hear your thoughts!

REFERENCES:

Vervaeke, John. [Dr. John Vervaeke]. (2018, July 5). Cognitive Science Rescues the Deconstructed Mind [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czddkPxz4K4&t=5s

Burgess, Neil. [Neil Burgess]. (2017, August 10). Cognitive Neuroscience — Neil Burgess [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOaDhCjm5I8