Cognitive neuroscience 39 ABSTRACT The development of a comprehensive model of human cognition is possible only through cooperation and ex- change of information within the disciplines of cognitive neuroscience. Each discipline provides a different but com- plementary view of the subject of study, research methods and techniques. Building on frameworks developed by Marr (1982), Flanagan (1992) and Kosslyn (1996), we propose a pyramid approach to research in cognitive neu- roscience that tries to combine the advantages and contri- butions of constituent fields –cognitive psychology, com- putational modelling, neuroscience and cognitive neu- ropsychology - into a powerful research strategy. Human mind is one of the most exciting and complex sub- jects of scientific study. Its study probably spans back to the beginnings of history, to the emergence of self-awareness. It has been and still is a subject of study of various disci- plines from psychology to physics, from philosophy to eco- nomics. The way people perceive themselves and the world around them, think about it, reason about it, decide and solve problems, shapes every moment of their personal lives, in- fluences the dynamics of social groups, the success of busi- ness, the development of sciences, the well-being of coun- tries and the future of planet Earth. Each discipline ap- proaches the subject of human mind and brain from its own specific point of view, using the methods, conceptual tools and research paradigms developed through the history of the discipline and adjusted to the specific questions it tries to find answers to. Even though addressing the same sub- ject, the theories, models and findings of different disciplines were and still are hard if sometimes not impossible to relate to one another. In the past not many even considered it worth- while. It was with the rise of the cognitive paradigm that things started to change. The cognitive paradigm brought about two important changes. First, after the long and hard rule of behaviorism that flatly denied any validity to the study of human mind, the mind and its relation to the brain became the central subject of study, bringing together many disciplines that used to be either labeled as unscientific or previously didn’t ex- plicitly address the subject. A broad movement under the name Cognitive science was born. The second change was a lot more subtle but arguably even more important. The cognitive paradigm has established decompositional analy- sis as the basic research and explanatory strategy, and infor- mation-processing as its core approach (Atkinson, 1998). Information-processing approach tries to explain how and why humans possess their capacities and properties in terms of characteristics of parts of their cognitive system. It as- The pyramid approach to research in cognitive neuroscience Grega Repovš Department of psychology, University of Ljubljana Aškerceva 2, SI-1000 Ljubljana e-mail: gregor.repovs@uni-lj.si sumes that the brain enables a person to have these capaci- ties and properties in virtue of having specific information- processing components operating in a specific way. It was this change that enabled different disciplines to adopt a com- mon research paradigm, to use the same theories and mod- els and relate their research findings. Cognitive psycholo- gists were able to build computational models and compu- ter simulations of their theories. Neuropsychologists could use models of normal brain function to explain cognitive dysfunctions after brain damage and plan appropriate reha- bilitation programs. Neuroscientists were able to use mod- els of functional architecture to guide their research efforts in finding relevant neuroanatomical structures and neuro- physiological mechanisms, and at the same time provide cognitive psychologists with important ideas and constraints for their theories. Cognitive neuroscience was born. Even though possible, the exchange of information and combination of research approaches within fields of cogni- tive neuroscience was not that common or even readily ac- cepted. Some for instance have insisted that the task of cog- nitive psychology is to propose and test models of func- tional architecture and not to speculate on structural and material underpinnings. Even though combination and con- frontation of evidence from different fields of cognitive neu- roscience enabled some important breakthroughs, no gen- erally accepted framework that would specify how to com- bine the information existed. The need for a research frame- work that would propose a way to coordinate research ef- forts and relate the findings from different fields of cogni- tive neuroscience in development of complex theories of human brain function soon became apparent. A descriptive proposal and an argument for such a frame- work in the study of consciousness was put forward by Owen Flanagan (1992), and called “the natural method”. Flanagan argued that to be able to provide a promising theory of con- sciousness one has to treat three lines of analysis, pertain- ing to three different levels of description, with equal re- spect. First, one has to take into account phenomenology and listen carefully to what individuals have to say about their experiences. Second, one has to turn to psychologists and cognitive scientist and their accounts of how mental life works and what role consciousness has in its overall economy. Finally, one has to listen to the neuroscientists’ explanations of how different sorts of conscious mental events are realized in the brain. The object of the natural method is then to see if the three stories can be rendered coherent, meshed and brought into relative equilibrium with- out any prejudice or a priori decision about which line of analysis is the best or the most correct one. Flanagan argued that none of the approaches can “make it” on their own. Phenomenology can provide detailed descriptions of the