Barack David L
Department of Philosophy, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Wiley Interdiscip Rev Cogn Sci. 2025 May-Jun;16(3):e70003. doi: 10.1002/wcs.70003.
How do theories of the functions of parts of the brain change? I argue that computational hypotheses help explain the nature of theorizing in cognitive neurobiology. I will focus on the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), a frontal region of the brain implicated in an array of cognitive functions. Different theories of OFC state different principles of OFC function and use different concepts to construct those principles. There are also differences in the patterns of use of evidence across different theories. I briefly survey several extant proposals for understanding theory change in science generally and cognitive neuroscience specifically, including paradigm shifts, tool innovation, mechanism discovery, conceptual innovation, exploratory experimentation, and changes in measurement techniques. While these extant approaches fall short at describing the nature of theory change illustrated by the case of OFC, they are compatible with my proposal that these theoretical changes and differences in the use of evidence result from different computational hypotheses about the region.
大脑各部分功能的理论是如何变化的？我认为计算假设有助于解释认知神经生物学中理论构建的本质。我将聚焦于眶额皮质（OFC），这是大脑额叶的一个区域，与一系列认知功能相关。关于OFC的不同理论阐述了不同的OFC功能原理，并使用不同的概念来构建这些原理。不同理论在证据使用模式上也存在差异。我简要概述了一些现存的关于理解科学中，特别是认知神经科学中理论变化的提议，包括范式转变、工具创新、机制发现、概念创新、探索性实验以及测量技术的变化。虽然这些现存方法在描述以OFC为例所展示的理论变化本质方面存在不足，但它们与我的提议相符，即这些理论变化和证据使用上的差异源于对该区域的不同计算假设。
