Psychology departments are being affected by neuroscience

From today’s Chronicle of Higher Education on-line: psychology departments are morphing as a result of the growth of neuroscience.

Money quote:

A generation ago, most research psychologists worked in small teams and with small budgets. Today, large psychology departments typically include big laboratories. The neuroscientists there work and publish in teams with as many as eight members, and their equipment costs can run into the millions. Down the hall, their more traditionally oriented colleagues continue to work in smaller teams, with much smaller budgets, and sometimes at slower paces.

Jim

Cognitive neuroscience and the election (NY Times Op Ed)

Sam Wang and Joshua Gold (of Princeton and Penn respectively) bring cognitive neuroscience to the US general election next week:

If decisions are lurking somewhere in the brains of undecided voters, could brain imaging methods reveal their inclinations? Not yet. Recent research has shown that when undecided voters looked at images of candidates, their brains’ emotional centers were often activated. But this reveals little information about the content of their thoughts. Such research serves mainly to demonstrate how hard it is for scientists to physically trace complex concepts like preference.