Technology, Learning, and the Brain.
Ever since our earliest recorded memories, humans have explored how ideas are processed and communicated. A tremendous upsurge of studies in neuroscience and psychology
has emerged in the past several decades with the advent of newer technologies. Neuroscientists
have utilized technological advances such as functional magnetic resonance imaging to
study processes of the mind and the brain since the early 1990’s.
Since then, there has been an exponential increase in publications utilizing fMRI data. The intent of scientists who adopt this approach is to identify brain behavior correlations in an effort to discover how psychological processes are localized in brain tissue as they conduct varying activities from watching television to meditation.
Neuroscience has further expanded its horizons with techniques that enable the measurement of important structural components of the brain such as diffusion tensor imaging and positron emission tomography. DTI data can be used to perform tractography within white matter resulting in increasingly accurate insight into the cognitive and biological processes of the human brain. PET neuroimaging examines links between specific psychological processes or disorders and brain activity.
Fast-forward to 2016 and we are conducting more research on the brain than ever with
advances in more innovative and efficient technology. However, today more researchers are
interested not only in where the brain learns, but also how it interacts with the use of technology in humans, particularly with the Millennials who spend upwards of half their days using
technology on computers, television, mobile phones, video games, and virtual reality devices.
Psychol Cogn Sci Open J. 2016; SE(2): Se1-Se2. doi:10.17140/PCSOJ-SE-2-e001
