认知神经心理学简介

An Introduction to Cognitive Neuropsychology

认知神经心理学是认理心理学的一个分支，它的目的是探讨当人们执行认知活动的时侯，心理信息加工过程是怎样的，所采用的手段是研究这些认知功能受损的病人，它与认知神经科学的不同在于：认知神经心理学关注的是心理（mind），而认知神经科学关注的是大脑（特别是关注与认知有关的大脑机制），研究认知神经心理学的方法也可以用于研究发展性认知障碍，如阅读障碍，或者特殊的语言损伤，这就是发展性认知神经心理学。这些方法还可以用于高级认知方面的研究，如信念形成和心理理论。这些高级认知方面的障碍是精神病学的范畴，因此这类研究借错觉、幻想或虚构等的认知神经心理学叫做认知神经精神病学。认知神经心理学的典型特征有：（1）研究症状，而不是并发症；（2）采用个案研究，而不是群体研究；（3）主要数据来源是症状间的双分离；（4）致力于模块化认知模型的建立。

Cognitive neuropsychology is a branch of cognitive psychology. Its aim therefore is to discover what the mental information─processing procedures are that people use when executing acts of cognition， and it seeks to do this by studying ways in which cognition can break down after brain damage. It is distinct from cognitive neuroscience；cognitive neuropsychology is about the mind whereas cognitive neuroscience is about the brain（specifically， about brain mechanisms subserving cognition）. The methods of cognitive neuropsychology can also be used to study developmental disorders of cognition such as dyslexia or specific language impairment：such work is known as developmental cognitive neuropsychology. These methods can also be used to study high─level aspects of cognition such as belief formation or theory of mind. Disorders of such high level aspects of cognition are the province of psychiatry， and so this kind of cognitive neuropsychiatry. Characteristic features of cognitive neuropsychology are（a）that it investigates symptoms， not syndromes；（b）that is uses single─case studies， not group studies；（c）that its chief source of data is double dissociations between symptoms；and（d） that it is committed to modular modeling of cognition.