Brain imaging : Making the unobservable observable?(Brain imaging and psychonomic science,Symposium 2 at the 26th Annual Meeting)

抄録

Neuroimaging techniques have now made possible to "view" brain processes that before were not visible. Such revolutionary methods have caused much enthusiasm within the neurosciences as well as in the general public, but some scholars remain skeptical about the actual progress derived from such a research. Among the criticisms, the localizing power of brain scans seems to add little knowledge about how the mind works. However, it can be argued that neuroimaging studies can be theoretically grounded and strongly contribute to our understanding of the mind. Indeed, our understanding of particularly difficult issues, like that of human consciousness, may greatly benefit from the ability to observe neural activity as it happens inside our heads. For example, private experiences as "seeing" mental images or synaesthetic colors can be shown to correlate to neural activity in the brain's sensory areas that support visual perception. Not only this evidence confirms the sensorial aspect of these conscious events but it has also the power to resolve long-standing theoretical issues about their nature.