Getting to the Heart of the Brain: Using Cognitive Neuroscience to Explore the Nature of Human Ability and Performance

Abstract

This article serves as a primer to make the neuroimaging literature more accessible to the lay reader and to increase the evaluative capability of the educated consumer of cognitive neuroscience. This special issue gives gifted education practitioners and researchers a primary source view of current neuroscience relevant to modern definitions and conceptions of giftedness while helping readers understand the methods of modern cognitive neuroscience. A second goal of this special issue is to increase readers' scientific literacy to generate a clearer understanding of both the utility and limitations of neuroimaging studies and a set of operating principles to employ when reading about neuroimaging studies from both primary and secondary sources. The potential for cognitive neuroscience to impact education has been an issue of high interest and rigorous debate, and international communities of educators and scientists have convened to explore potential intersections. Added to this, multiple and myriad definitions of giftedness make the exercise of exploring the nature of human ability and performance psychometrically and scientifically challenging.