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Cognitive Neuroscience Essay

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Cognitive Neuroscience is a comparatively new field focusing on exploring the relationship between the human brain and the act of thinking, or cognition.

Essentially, cognition is the way in which our minds process information. The exact type of information processed is varied and so cognition can cover a wide range of stimuli. It includes the processing of things like visual perception and other sensory information like touch, feel and taste. However, cognition can also be applied to things like emotional responses, preferences, and decision making skills.

Some have described cognition as referring to," familiar psychological abilities such as seeing, believing, imagining, guessing and inferring." (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7c0n12dDm38VWN3eFRaWHUzTXM/view?pli=1) If you think about it these skills are incredibly important to everyday life. As human beings …show more content…

Despite this persistent interest in the human thought process, Cognition has been nearly impossible to study because of it's non-physical nature. Only recent technological advances have allowed for quantifiable, information and academic study in the field of cognitive neuroscience.
This related field of technology is called Neuroimaging. Neuroimaging has been very important to the expansion of Cognitive Neuroscience because it allows for a visual representation of how certain sections of the brain respond to various outside stimuli. For example, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging(fMRI) is currently being used in studies relating to how people purchase and consume food. Brain activity is recorded and visualized as the mind reacts to things like brand names or packaging

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