"Brain and Cognition Research Laboratory" Challenges the Brain

Studies conducted at Bahçeşehir University's "Brain and Cognition Research Laboratory" have begun to bear their first fruits.

Research at the Brain and Cognition Research Laboratory on the neurobiological foundations of human mental processes seeks answers to questions such as: "Which regions of the brain are associated with decisions about whether a piece of information exists in human memory?", "How does a person decide whether they definitely know or do not know something, and whether information in their memory is certain or doubtful?", "Is there a relationship between knowing what one knows and self-esteem?" and "Does the inability to retrieve existing information point to impairments in decision-making ability or to certain problems in a person's cognitive processes?"

All these questions will be answered through studies by Bahçeşehir University faculty member Assoc. Prof. Dr. Metehan Irak and 3 of his students. Psychology students Cansın Özgör and Dicle Çapan and Software Engineering student Fatih Yıldızhan are actively involved in these studies as research assistants in the laboratory.

THE BRAIN'S SELF-CONFIDENCE ENABLES KNOWING

The results of the studies at the Brain and Cognition Research Laboratory have brought scientists one step closer to unraveling the complex structure of the human mind. According to the study, under way since October 2011, when we "think we know" the answer to a question, a specialized area in the prefrontal cortex, one of the frontal structures of the brain, is active, whereas when we "think we don't know" the answer to a question, two adjacent specialized areas of the prefrontal cortex (one of them the same as in the case where we think we know) become active in sequence.The findings indicate that in the "not knowing" state, the brain responds by drawing on "knowing" states.

As a result, these brain activities are also highly correlated with the "confidence" a person feels in what they know or do not know, and this confidence enables the person to answer more comfortably whether or not they know the answers to questions.