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I have argued elsewhere (Shevrin, 2000) that contemporary cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience are highly effective in generating findings but woefully weak in generating theories to explain these findings or to predict yet-to-be-discovered phenomena, the ultimate test of a good theory. Now Shulman and Reiser raise serious questions about the methods themselves underlying the generation of these findings.
They question the modular approach of cognitive psychology on which imaging studies in cognitive neuroscience are based. They point out that imaging studies do not account for the 80% of brain activity subtracted away so that investigators can more easily isolate the absolute increment of neuronal activity related to the stimulus under study. They demonstrate that far from being absolute, this increment is in part a function of the total neuronal activity in the activated region. The so-called resting activity of the brain is not to be treated as “noise”—random neuronal events uncorrelated with the activation of interest that can simply be ignored. Quite to the contrary, Shulman and Reiser argue that this “resting” activity is the essence of the mind-brain subjectivity constantly interacting and affecting other activity. They emphasize that this activity is sensitive to context and individual factors. And lastly, but most importantly, one can begin to make sense of this “resting” activity if one assumes that a good deal of it is unconscious. The theory they draw upon to conceptualize the nature of this unconscious activity is Freud's topographical theory, the earliest of his efforts to conceptualize the relationship between conscious and unconscious processes, and one, interestingly, that has come under attack within psychoanalysis itself.
Using their critique of cognitive neuroscience methodology and new findings concerning the extent of the ignored background activity, Shulman and Reiser propose a two-phase approach for imaging studies. The first and vit