The case study approach is referenced as a key method in early cognitive neuropsychology; which approach fits this description?

• A. Case studies
• B. Large randomized trials
• C. Neuroimaging meta-analyses
• D. Animal studies

Answer: (A)

This item tests the use of detailed studies of individual brain-damaged patients to infer how cognitive functions are organized. In early cognitive neuropsychology, researchers relied on single-case or small-group investigations to observe which abilities were impaired and which were spared after specific brain lesions. By comparing performance across tasks, they looked for dissociations—where one ability is disrupted while another remains intact—and, especially, double dissociations to argue that two processes are functionally independent. This approach lets us map cognitive components to neural structures and propose how the mind is organized, rather than just measuring overall performance.

Other approaches don’t fit this pattern. Large randomized trials focus on group-level treatment effects and causal inferences about interventions, not the architecture of cognition revealed through lesion deficits. Neuroimaging meta-analyses synthesize brain activation data across studies, which is a different kind of evidence about brain regions involved in tasks. Animal studies provide comparative insights and can model some processes, but they don’t capture the human cognitive architectures that early case-based neuropsychology aimed to uncover.