Cognitive Approaches to Neuropsychology: (Human Neurosychologie)

Since its early development, neuropsychology has examined the manner in which cognitive abilities are mediated by the brain. fudeed, all of neuropsy­ chology, and especially clinical neuropsychology, could be subsumed under this general investigation. However, a variety of factors impeded the close as­ sociation of neuropsychologists and cognitive/experimental psychologists. These factors were prominent influences in both camps, which kept the study of cognition away from a consideration of biological foundations and kept neuropsychology theoretically impoverished. In recent years, these factors have diminished and "cognitive neuropsychology" has become a popular term to describe the new movements to join the study of cognition with the study of brain function. The factors which kept these areas separate were manifestations of his­ torical trends and represent a social distance which largely happened by acci­ dent. The first and perhaps most important factor was that early investigators of cognition and brain function were not psychologists. Most were neurolo­ gists or otlier neuroscientists who were excellent observers of behavior fol­ lowing brain injury but had virtually no theoretical context of cognitive psy­ chology, which would allow them to expand and deepen their understanding of the behavior they were observing. As more psychologists who have such a context have observed the consequences of brain disorders, especially aphasia and amnesia, the study of them has become far more comprehensive as theo­ ries of language and memory derived from cognitive psychology have been incorporated into the investigations.

Table of Contents:
1. Four Computational Models for Investigating Neuropsychological Decision-making.- 2. Acalculia: Multiplication Fact Retrieval in Normal and Impaired Subjects.- 3. Attentional Imbalances following Head Injury.- 4. Toward a Cognitive Neuropsychology of Complex Learning.- 5. Aging and Spatial Cognition: Current Status and New Directions for Experimental Researchers and Cognitive Neuropsychologists.- 6. An Integrated Approach to the Neuropsychological Assessment of Cognitive Function.- 7. Everyday Cognition and the Ecological Validity of Intellectual and Neuropsychological Tests.- 8. Psychometric Confirmation of Neuropsychological Theory.- 9. The Role of Motivation in Rehabilitation.- 10. Brain Imaging: Positron Emission Tomography and Cognitive Functioning.- 11. Child Neuropsychology and Cognitive Developmental Theory.- 12. Neuropsychological Aspects of Simultaneous and Successive Cognitive Processes.- 13. Familial Sinistrality and Syntactic Processing.- 14. Adult Cognition: Neuropsychological Evidence and Developmental Models.- 15. Preserved Cognitive Functions in Dementia.- 16. A Preliminary Neuro-cognitive Model of Tactuospatial Motor Learning.- 17. The Neuropsychology of Autobiographical Memory.