I. Answer the following questions on the text:

1. Where is computational modeling used? What for?

2. What advantages does this method have?

3. What types of modeling are used to study behaviour?

4. Why do some psychologists criticize experimentation and statistical study in psychology?

5. Another common criticism of psychology concerns its fuzziness as a science, doesn’t it? Explain.

6. What theories and approaches does critical psychology use to criticize mainstream psychology?

II. Give Russian equivalents of the following.

Computational modeling; cognitive psychology; to visualize hypotheses; to simulate the brain; mainstream psychology; misconception; to point out; to be directly observed; to prove; to be amenable to.

III. Find English equivalents in the text

доказывать; преимущество; воспроизводить (моделировать); много; метод; подвергать; человек; лишать человеческих качеств; принижать; анкета; претендовать, научный; критиковать.

IV. Give the summary of the text.

V. Read the text and then translate it in writing.

Correlational studies. Longitudinal studies. Neuropsychological methods.

A correlational study uses statistics to determine if one variable is likely to co-occur with another variable. For example, one might be interested in whether or not a person's smoking is correlated with that individual's chance of getting lung cancer. One way to answer this would simply be to take a group of people who smoke and measure the proportion of those who get lung cancer within a certain time. In this particular case, one would probably find a high correlation. (Tobacco is already known to have a deleterious effect on the lungs). Based on this correlation alone, however, we cannot know for certain that smoking is the cause of lung cancer. It could be that those more prone to cancer are also more likely to take up smoking. A third alternative is that some other variable caused both conditons. This is a major limitation of correlational studies, exemplified by the fact that correlation does not imply causation.

A longitudinal study is a research method which observes a particular population over time. For example, one might wish to study specific language impairment (SLI) by observing a group of individuals with the condition over a period of time. This method has the advantage of seeing how a condition can affect individuals over long time scales. However, since individual differences between members of the group are not controlled, it may be difficult to draw conclusions about the populations.

Neuropsychology involves the study of both healthy individuals and patients, typically who have suffered either brain injury or mental illness.

Cognitive neuropsychology and cognitive neuropsychiatry study neurological or mental impairment in an attempt to infer theories of normal mind and brain function. This typically involves looking for differences in patterns of remaining ability (known as 'functional dissociations') which can give clues as to whether abilities are comprised of smaller functions, or are controlled by a single cognitive mechanism.

In addition, experimental techniques are often used which also apply to studying the neuropsychology of healthy indviduals. These include behavioural experiments, brain-scanning or functional neuroimaging - used to examine the activity of the brain during task performance, and techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation, which can safely alter the function of small brain areas to investigate their importance in mental operations.