The Uttal Tetralogy of Cognitive Neuroscience
5 total works
Originally published in 1981, this third volume deals with the empirical data base and the theories concerning visual perception - the set of mental responses to photic stimulation of the eyes. As the book develops, the plan was to present a general taxonomy of visual processes and phenomena. It was hoped that such a general perspective would help to bring some order to the extensive, but largely unorganized, research literature dealing with our immediate perceptual responses to visual stimuli at the time. The specific goal of this work was to provide a classification system that integrates and systematizes the data base of perceptual psychology into a comprehensive intellectual scheme by means of an eclectic, multi-level metatheory invoking several different kinds of explanation.
These four volumes, originally published between 1973 and 1988, were intended to provide a broad survey of cognitive neuroscience, a field known variously as physiological psychology or psychobiology in the 1970s and 1980s when the books were written. The general goal was to summarize what was known about the relation between brain and mind at that time, with an emphasis on sensory and perceptual topics. Out of print for many years, the Tetralogy is now available again, as a set for the first time (which is as the author envisaged it), or as individual volumes.
Originally published in 1978, this book develops a conceptual synthesis of the field of physiological psychology, the science specifically concerned with the relationship between the brain and the mind. It was designed to elucidate the important questions under investigation, the basic intellectual and technical problems that were encountered, and the significance of the major empirical results of the time. Of equal or even greater importance is the author’s derivation of the general principles relating brain and mind that had emerged after decades of modern research into this important question. Included in the volume are historical and philosophical perspectives on the mind-brain problem as well as extensive discussions of instruments, methodology, empirical findings and theory.
Here is a powerful heuristic tool that informs the reader about the concepts and ideas implicit in this science rather than simply exhaustively listing experimental results. The author does not ignore findings; he organizes them into three broad categories – localization; representation, and learning – then emphasizes the relationships among experiments. This is a book that synthesizes, integrates, and stresses concepts, principles and problems. The careful organization of the book makes it especially useful for students of brain and mind at all levels.
Originally published in 1988, this is the final volume in the set. The original intent of the tetralogy was to review neural explanations of high level perceptual and cognitive processes. However, at this point, it became clear that there were few neural explanations of perceptual topics – a situation that still persists today. This book, therefore, used a different framework examining the role of detection, discrimination, and recognition at the behavioral level.
Originally published in 1973, this book deals with what were, even at that time, the well-known neural coding processes of the sensory transmission processes. The book was written to demonstrate the common features of the various senses. It concentrates on the most peripheral neural aspects of the senses starting with the physical transduction process and culminating in the arrival of signals at the brain.