neuroscience

Cognitive neuroscience has developed many approaches to the study of learning that might be useful to functionally oriented researchers, including those from a relational frame theory (RFT) perspective. We focus here on two examples. First, cognitive neuroscience often distinguishes between habit and goal-directed reinforcement learning, in which only the latter is sensitive to proximal changes in behavior-environment contingencies.

Early childhood is marked by substantial development in the self-regulatory skills supporting school readiness and socioemotional competence. Evidence from developmental social cognitive neuroscience suggests that these skills develop as a function of changes in a dynamic interaction between more top-down (controlled) regulatory processes and more bottom-up (automatic) influences on behavior.

The subject matter of neuroscience research is complex, and synthesizing the wealth of data from this

research to better understand mental processes is challenging. A useful strategy, therefore, may be to

explicitly distinguish between the causal effects of the environment on behaviour (i.e., functional

analyses) and the mental processes that mediate these effects (i.e., cognitive analyses). In this article

Little daily hassles can add up to big, big stress.