Application of Mental Chronometry in Biological Psychology/cognitive Neuroscience
With the advent of the functional neuroimaging techniques of PET and fMRI, psychologists started to modify their mental chronometry paradigms for functional imaging (Posner, 2005). Although psycho(physio)logists have been using electroencephalographic measurements for decades, the images obtained with PET have attracted great interest from other branches of neuroscience, popularizing mental chronometry among a wider range of scientists in recent years. The way that mental chronometry is utilized is by performing tasks based on reaction time which measures through neuroimaging the parts of the brain which are involved in the cognitive processes.
In the 1950s, the use of a micro electrode recording of single neurons in anaesthetized monkeys allowed research to look at physiological process in the brain and supported this idea that people encode information serially.
In the 1960s, these methods were used extensively in humans: researchers recorded the electrical potentials in human brain using scalp electrodes while a reaction tasks was being conducted using digital computers. What they found was that there was a connection between the observed electrical potentials with motor and sensory stages for information processing. For example, researchers found in the recorded scalp potentials that the frontal cortex was being activated in association with motor activity. These finding can be connected to Donders’ idea of the subtractive method of the sensory and motor stages involved in reaction tasks.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, development of signal processing tool for EEG translated into a revival of research using this technique to assess the timing and the speed of mental processes. For example, high-profile research showed how reaction time on a given trial correlated with the latency (delay between stimulus and response) of the P300 wave or how the timecourse of the EEG reflected the sequence of cognitive processes involved in perceptual processing.
With the invention of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), techniques were used to measure activity through electrical event-related potentials in a study when subjects were asked to identify if a digit that was presented was above or below five. According to Sternberg’s additive theory, each of the stages involved in performing this task includes: encoding, comparing against the stored representation for five, selecting a response, and then checking for error in the response. The fMRI image presents the specific locations where these stages are occurring in the brain while performing this simple mental chronometry task.
In the 1980s, neuroimaging experiments allowed researchers to detect the activity in localized brain areas by injecting radionuclides and using positron emission tomography (PET) to detect them. Also, fMRI was used which have detected the precise brain areas that are active during mental chronometry tasks. Many studies have shown that there is a small number of brain areas which are widely spread out which are involved in performing these cognitive tasks.
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