The Darwinian status of mind

Event-related potentials, cognition, and behavior: A biological approach

The prevailing cognitive-psychological accounts of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) assume that ERP components manifest information processing operations leading from stimulus to response. Since this view encounters numerous difficulties already analyzed in previous studies, an alternative view is presented here that regards cortical control of behavior as a repetitive sensorimotor cycle consisting of two phases: (i) feedforward anticipation and (ii) feedback cortical performance. This view allows us to interpret in an integrative manner numerous data obtained from very different domains of ERP studies: from biophysics of ERP waves to their relationship to the processing of language, in which verbal behavior is viewed as likewise controlled by the same two basic control processes: feedforward (hypothesis building) and feedback (hypothesis checking). The proposed approach is intentionally simplified, explaining numerous effects on the basis of few assumptions and relating several levels of analysis: neurophysiology, macroelectrical processes (i.e. ERPs), cognition and behavior. It can, therefore, be regarded as a first approximation to a general theory of ERPs.

Imagery practice and the development of surgical skills

BACKGROUND

The purpose of this review is to explore the potential role of imagery practice during the acquisition of surgical skills, imagery practice being the mental rehearsal of a skill.

METHODS

The core of this review is derived from a literature search of a computer database (Medline).

FINDINGS

The cognitive processing that occurs during times of intense learning involves processes such as dream enactment behavior and imagery practice. These processes complement and augment the more usual forms of practice.

CONCLUSIONS

Imagery practice provides a mechanism for the explicit learning of surgical skills.