Cognitive information processing and learning mechanisms of the brain

The view that the two cerebral hemispheres of the human brain are characterized by different cognitive processing modes that handle information received in various forms is commonly accepted by neurobehavioral scientists and neuropsychologists. Selected neuroanatomical, electrophysiological, neurochemical, biochemical, and neuropsychological data that bear on a cognitive information-processing model of the brain are presented. Processes involved in memory functions are discussed in regard to the nature of thought and the characteristics of mental life, e.g., internalization of thought, perception, arousal, attention, cognitive development, problem solving, the development of cognitive encoding, and selective recall. We present a position that argues for the brain as being flexible vs. fixed in its characteristics and limitations, drawing from various theories and viewpoints. We also present a review of selected mechanisms believed to be involved in brain-behavior processes, e.g., learning, cognition, pain, emotion, reward, cognitive development, and memory formation. A major theme addressed in terms of human information processing is that cognitive functioning, in a variety of instances, comprises subsets of more general processes, e.g., selective recall, cueing that is capable of addressing schemas, notions of inhibition and disinhibition, and the modulation of excitatory properties of certain neural transmitter substances. Questions such as "how is information stored in memory in the first place?" and "how do elements of motivation (i.e., goal orientation) get connected and then send their messages to appropriate inbound behaviors?" are addressed from the point of view that learning, although not understood completely, is somehow involved. Another unresolved question of theoretical and practical significance that we address is "how does learning result in neural connections?" Such questions are discussed in light of their implications for human memory, thought, and behavioral events.