TY - JOUR
T1 - Do Retinal Neurons Also Represent Somatosensory Inputs? On Why Neuronal Responses Are Not Sufficient to Determine What Neurons Do
AU - Elber-Dorozko, Lotem
AU - Loewenstein, Yonatan
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Cognitive Science Society LLC.
PY - 2023/4
Y1 - 2023/4
N2 - How does neuronal activity give rise to cognitive capacities? To address this question, neuroscientists hypothesize about what neurons “represent,” “encode,” or “compute,” and test these hypotheses empirically. This process is similar to the assessment of hypotheses in other fields of science and as such is subject to the same limitations and difficulties that have been discussed at length by philosophers of science. In this paper, we highlight an additional difficulty in the process of empirical assessment of hypotheses that is unique to the cognitive sciences. We argue that, unlike in other scientific fields, comparing hypotheses according to the extent to which they explain or predict empirical data can lead to absurd results. Other considerations, which are perhaps more subjective, must be taken into account. We focus on one such consideration, which is the purposeful function of the neurons as part of a biological system. We believe that progress in neuroscience critically depends on properly addressing this difficulty.
AB - How does neuronal activity give rise to cognitive capacities? To address this question, neuroscientists hypothesize about what neurons “represent,” “encode,” or “compute,” and test these hypotheses empirically. This process is similar to the assessment of hypotheses in other fields of science and as such is subject to the same limitations and difficulties that have been discussed at length by philosophers of science. In this paper, we highlight an additional difficulty in the process of empirical assessment of hypotheses that is unique to the cognitive sciences. We argue that, unlike in other scientific fields, comparing hypotheses according to the extent to which they explain or predict empirical data can lead to absurd results. Other considerations, which are perhaps more subjective, must be taken into account. We focus on one such consideration, which is the purposeful function of the neurons as part of a biological system. We believe that progress in neuroscience critically depends on properly addressing this difficulty.
KW - Biological function
KW - Competing hypotheses
KW - Neuronal computation
KW - Neuronal representation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85151949652&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/cogs.13265
DO - 10.1111/cogs.13265
M3 - ???researchoutput.researchoutputtypes.contributiontojournal.letter???
C2 - 37029513
AN - SCOPUS:85151949652
SN - 0364-0213
VL - 47
JO - Cognitive Science
JF - Cognitive Science
IS - 4
M1 - e13265
ER -