BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:The representational-hierarchical view of cognition: implications 
 for amnesia\, interference and Alzheimer's Disease - Dr Lisa Saksida\, Rea
 der in Cognitive Neuroscience\, Department of Psychology\, University of C
 ambridge
DTSTART:20130426T153000Z
DTEND:20130426T170000Z
UID:TALK44189@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Louise White
DESCRIPTION:The prevailing paradigm in cognitive neuroscience assumes that
  the brain can\nbest be understood as consisting of modules specialised fo
 r different\npsychological functions. Within the field of memory\, we assu
 me modules for\ndifferent kinds of memory. The most influential version of
  this view posits a\nmodule called the "medial temporal lobe memory system
 " which operates in the\nservice of declarative memory. This system can be
  contrasted with a separate\n"perceptual representation system" in the ven
 tral visual stream\, which is\ncritical for perceptual learning and memory
 \, an example of nondeclarative\nfunction. In this talk\, I will suggest t
 hat a potentially better way to\nunderstand the ventral visual-perirhinal-
 hippocampal stream is as a\nhierarchically organised representational cont
 inuum. According to this\nrepresentational-hierarchical view\, cognition\,
  perception\, memory\, and indeed\namnesia may be understood by considerin
 g the content and organization of\nstimulus representations in the brain. 
 This view makes specific predictions\nrelated to classic issues in amnesia
  research\, namely whether amnesia is due to\na deficit of encoding\, stor
 age or retrieval\, and the related issue of the role\nof interference in a
 mnesia. It further suggests that\, in general\, rather than\ntrying to map
  psychological functions onto brain modules\, we could benefit by\ninstead
  attempting to understand the functions of brain regions in terms of the\n
 representations they contain\, and the computations they perform.\n
LOCATION:Ground Floor Lecture Theatre\, Department of Psychology
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR