Abstract

This chapter examines the relations between psychology and neuroscience. There is a strong philosophical intuition that direct study of the brain can and will constrain the development of psychological theory. When this intuition is tested against case studies from the psychology of perception and memory, it turns out that psychology has led the way toward knowledge of neurophysiology. The chapter presents an abstract argument to show that psychology can and must lead the way in neuroscientific study of mental function. The opposing intuition is based on mainly weak arguments about the fundamentality or objectivity of physics or physiology in relation to psychology. The chapter argues that psychological phenomena are methodologically prior to neurophysiological concepts and descriptions, that psychology provides the functional descriptions that guide the behavioral brain sciences, that psychological concepts are not reducible, but that neurophysiological data and concepts are nonetheless evidentially and explanatorily relevant for psychology.