Critical Points of the Articles, Article Review Example

All the articles reviewed and discussed in this paper observe related topics such as neuropsychological disorders of lexical processing, selective deficit caused by brain injure, cognitive neuropsychological research, etc. Some of the raised issues contradict each other, some serve as supports and additional prove for each other. In their theorizing, the authors refer to each other’s experience, arguing, discussing presented theories and performed researches. Articles are connected in a certain way, complementing one another and creating clear background for each subject being on the agenda.

“Lexical Organization of Nouns and Verbs in the Brain” by Alfonso Caramazza and Argye E. Hillis (Department of Cognitive Science, The Johns Hopkins University) performed a study the results of which raise two crucial questions concerning the nature and the locus of nouns and verbs organization in the lexical system. The questions are: “Is the noun-verb distinction represented in the semantic or in the phonological and orthographic lexicons?” and “Is grammatical-class knowledge represented independently of lexical forms or is it represented separately and redundantly within each modality-specific lexicon?”

The authors have performed the analysis of the neuropsychological disorders of lexical processing that presents important information about how different parts of a lexical system are arranged and work together, as well as about the internal composition of the processing components. Assumption is made that a neural organization of the semantic processing components are organized in categories such as objects, animals, fruits and vegetables, abstract versus concrete words, living objects versus inanimate ones, proper names etc., and is supported by the reports of patients with selective dysfunction of mentioned particular semantic categories. There is as well a suggestion that an aspect of lexical organization is the grammatical class of words, provided by the reports of selective dysfunction of the grammatical categories nouns and verbs.  Assuming that grammatical-class dissimilarities are not necessarily represented in phonological and orthographic output lexical components, the authors present the distinctly diverse performances of two brain-damaged individuals with modality-specific deficits confined principally (H.W.) or virtually (S.J.D.) to verbs in oral and written production.

The study was performed by asking patients to read aloud, to write a 296-word dictation and to name 6o pictures of objects and actions. Their performance of the set tasks was considered to help to document the double dissociation of disproportionate production of semantic faults in both oral and written communication. Basing their conclusions on the results of the experiments, the authors state that there is an exceptionally precise organization of lexical knowledge in the semantic and in the lexical form levels of the brain. They as well propose that even not having specific ideas about the nature of the mechanisms operating in brain and calculating lexical structure, it is obvious that computed information represents grammatical class of words as well as their phonological and orthographical form. The reported results are considered to turn out to be a significant challenge for the model of lexical processing that would no longer employ linguistic level information in the demonstration of lexical knowledge.

“Broken Brains and Normal Minds: Why Humpty-Dumpty Needs a Skeleton” by Stephen M. Kosslyn and Michael Van Kleeck examines usefulness of drawing conclusions about normal processing from selective deficit caused by brain injure, and proposes interpretation of how to make best use of the power this method is considered to have.

The article discusses the objectives and methods of functional-deficit approaches to explain the complex nature of mental activity. It characterizes certain number of empirical and logical complications of the process of formulating theories based only on examination of behavioral deficits caused by brain damage. The authors claim that the discussion is both critical and lacking constructiveness, thus needing description of approaches’ weaknesses to make argument for other approaches. The authors also discuss the proposal of how to apply deficit information in the most advantageous way to develop computational theories effectively.

In the article we observe the number of problems with inferences from damage and deficit discussed in details listed by the authors. These are: functional components cannot be identified with symptoms; functional components need not be neatly implemented in the brain; it is difficult to determine the function-implementation mapping; behavior is determined by multiple components; the system might dynamically adjust to damage; quantitative deficit might produce qualitative effects; localization of lesion does not necessarily localize damage; descriptions of deficit are theory related.

The authors also claim that construction of theories about the patterns of behavioral dysfunction following brain injure must be performed with essential consideration of anatomical and physiological brain structure, as well as computations required for performance of the set tasks. According to them concern about those constrains is exceptionally significant since they help to keep away from balancing situations against each other in order to produce an acceptable result and thus creating theories that sound reasonable and yet turn out to be false. The article discusses the sources of internal constrains such as anatomy and physiology, and those of the external constrains such as computation, explanation and behavior.

In conclusion the authors argue that information gained through conducting research on the effects of brain damage is indeed a source of support for information processing theory, and yet it is only useful in a limited way. This data may deliver clear understanding of the issue only if gathered alongside with development and experimenting of information processing theories in the context of the facts about the brain. The authors summarize stating that “such constrains provide a skeleton for Humpty-Dumpty, offering hope that after his fall we might be able to put him back up together again”.

“Is Cognitive Newopsychology Possible?” by Alfonso Caramazza (The Johns Hopkins University) focuses on evaluation of study programs principally aimed at constraining the theories of normal cognitive functioning with the use of analysis applied to acquired disorders of cognition.

Cognitive neuropsychology’s domain of inquiry considers normal perceptual, motor, and cognitive processes’ structure.  Thus it represents and accounts for a field of cognitive science. The types of observation that cognitive neuropsychology exercises while developing and evaluating theories of normal cognition differ from those typical for other branches of cognitive science. As for information used in cognitive neuropsychology, it is represented by reports about the performance of subjects with brain damages, focusing on their behavioral patterns. The results of such a type of biological manipulation as brain lesion are considered to be basic data used in cognitive neuropsychology, thus this same data is appropriate when maintaining the functional organization of the brain. The author conclude that referring to the facts mentioned above, cognitive neuropsychology turns out to be as well a branch of cognitive neuroscience.

The author presents the brief discussion of the fundamental hypotheses that stimulate cognitive neuropsychological research. He refers to the mentioned above article by Kosslyn and Van Kleeks stating that “the study of brain-damaged subjects for the purpose of constraining theories of normal cognitive processing cannot lead to meaningful conclusions unless the theories are directly cast in terms of anatomical and physiological facts”. The author argues that Kosslyn and Van Kleeck’s article combines critical analyses applicable to any empirical science as well as to cognitive neuropsychology specifically. He claims that consideration of both those criticisms being conflated is unsubstantiated, which is discovered through taking separate criticisms specific to cognitive neuropsychology into account. Kosslyn and Van Kleeck’s conclusions have exclusively theoretical nature, and thus being practically exercised they lose their power, turning out to be inapplicable in the context of certain problems. According to the author the solutions presented by KVK to prevail over the putative defects of cognitive neuropsychology do not work as well. Caramazza urges that Kosslyn and Van Kleeck haven’t prove the impossibility of cognitive neuropsychology, stating that this area of research still remains a thrilling and fruitful field of investigation

Caramazza claims that the major issue of the present discussion is to highlight “the pragmatic character of the motivation for using impaired performance to constrain theories of normal cognition”. There are detailed examples in the article that demonstrate and exemplify helpfulness and value of cognitive neuropsychological research. He concludes that in order to be worth of consideration, denial of its usefulness have to be founded on unambiguous assessment s of the real accomplishments of the enterprise and not simply on general declarations of possible deficiencies. The author argues that any empirical enterprise is not likely to be completely trustworthy if considering potential problems and complexity that might possibly occur in any case.