Levels of Analysis

PSY 511.003

Published

January 9, 2024

Levels of analysis

(Sejnowski, Churchland, & Movshon, 2014, fig. 1)

Cognitive science as complexity science (Favela, 2020)

(Favela, 2020, fig. 1)

David Marr (1945-1980)

David Marr

(Marr, 1980)

Marr’s Three Levels

(Favela, 2020, fig. 3)

Scientific “story-telling” at different levels of analysis

  • Temporal
    • Short/medium/long
  • Spatial
    • Small/medium/large

Your turn

Does neuroscience need behavior?

  • Does behavioral science need the brain?
  • What does psychology need?

Discussion of…

Krakauer, J. W., Ghazanfar, A. A., Gomez-Marin, A., MacIver, M. A., & Poeppel, D. (2017). Neuroscience needs behavior: Correcting a reductionist bias. Neuron, 93(3), 480–490. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2016.12.041.

Parada, F. J. & Rossi, A. (2018). If neuroscience needs behavior, what does psychology need? Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 433. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00433.

Key points

  • Questions ‘often tacit…belief in the reductionist program for understanding the link between brain and behavior’
  • Behavior -> understanding; neural interventions -> causality
  • Marr’s 3 levels (computation; algorithm; implementation)

![Krakauer, Ghazanfar, Gomez-Marin, MacIver, & Poeppel (2017) Figure 3

(Krakauer et al., 2017, fig. 4)

(Parada & Rossi, 2018, fig. 1)

Main points

  • Levels of analysis
  • Neuroscience needs behavior; behavioral science needs neuroscience

References

Favela, L. H. (2020). Cognitive science as complexity science. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews. Cognitive Science, 11(4), e1525. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.1525
Krakauer, J. W., Ghazanfar, A. A., Gomez-Marin, A., MacIver, M. A., & Poeppel, D. (2017). Neuroscience needs behavior: Correcting a reductionist bias. Neuron, 93(3), 480–490. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2016.12.041
Marr, D. (1980). Vision. Retrieved from https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/vision
Parada, F. J., & Rossi, A. (2018). If neuroscience needs behavior, what does psychology need? Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 433. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00433
Sejnowski, T. J., Churchland, P. S., & Movshon, J. A. (2014). Putting big data to good use in neuroscience. Nat. Neurosci., 17(11), 1440–1441. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3839