So to clarify and taking into account other’s comments/requests and also break this up into various priorities/settings that you might like and others.
The specialty with the most training and experience quantifying and doing research into cognition is Psychology (this covers a vast field of disciplines within it and specialisation).
I have a reasonable knowledge of what they all do but things differ depending on their country of training and what they are called and any psychologist in the forum can clarify more.
Once a person has done a Bachelor of Psychology, they then do additional training. (Part of their training is statistics and the requirements and application for doing scientific experimentation (something a psychiatrist has to learn to their level, in their training rather than during a medical degree where it is quite general)
A clinical psychologist has done additional study and training to the requirements of being registered and admitted to their professional Board (usually masters level) and must meet high standards of competence and ethics so they can safely work with people, their job is to
1) assess people - history taking and neuropsychological assessment and application of other questionnaires/screening tools etc pertinent to the field they are working in eg educational psychologists assessing children’s problems at school, mental health assessments, cognitive assessment for neurodegenerative diseases
2) treat people by using a variety of psychological therapies based on particular psychological theories and their scientific research into them
A psychologist who has done additional training in cognitive science, is a cognitive psychologist and is purely research based within an academic environment like a university. Then you can have clinical psychologists with additional training in cognition and specialising in neurodegenerative disorders
So it depends on the setting on what you would like to achieve:
A) “pure” research into cognition of ME (so within an academic setting) and liaising with neuroscientists (exploring brain function)
B) clinical research with pwME
but assessment only (no application based on findings and no psychological therapy applied)
C) clinical research as well as any therapy based on trying to improving cognitive function (and ?cognitive decline) in a pwME by using cognitive rehabilitation that is used in other neurological disorders but has yet to be legitimised with scientific research specific to ME.
D) use pre-exisiting medical/psychiatric system utilising the skills of psychiatry in clarifying issues around medical and psychiatric disorders so can get a more real world data of different and diverse groups of pwME
Yes, there is a lot of studies coming out on the cognition, the neuropsychology and brain function of pwME but also some of this information has been available for many years.
I had a neuropsychological assessment in 2004 by the Professor of Psychology at my local university and they had the scientific research and literature available to confirm that my cognitive dysfunction was due to ME. I had a classic pattern of working memory deficits, attention and concentration problems due to ME cognitive fatigue based on my history giving and their observation on what occurred during the assessment like performance dropped off etc etc. It was at the time of sitting and trying to pass the written exams for Fellowship and they gave recommendations on rest periods and and other cognitive-behavioural (no, not BPS!) techniques to apply. It helped. Neuropsych exams also test intelligence, visual spatial and all sorts of things that were very interesting to know and what my cognitive strengths and weaknesses were.
The finding of reduced limbic perfusion in pwME related to the severity of their illness and compared to controls, just a few months ago is a important new finding in the neuroscience of ME and has implications for exploring cognitive function and dysfunction (in my opinion)
https://www.s4me.info/threads/limbi...e-me-cfs-2021-xia-li-et-al.23110/#post-387719
So if you could tell me what you would like specifically and in what setting, I will try to give suggestions over time (as can’t do it all at once as I have quite abit of PEM to sort out myself….) So far you sound like you were on the right track but need some clarification.
Yes, potentially (re the tests in relation to PEM). It would be 'A' I guess by how you've listed it. No to the rest BUT ie the one definite area of psychology we don't mean is clinical (so I wouldn't word it that way, because I come at it from a different angle and see clinical as a 'little specific bit') - which seems to be weirdly more allied with psychiatry and seems to operate very differently.
A BSc in Psychology requires certain areas to be covered to a set amount/standard in order for it to be 'BPS accredited'. Stats, research design, methodology and grounding of themes, debates, literature but also the key subjects (which clinical is just one module of over a 3yr degree) is needed. Many of these subjects focus on methodology as 'how' is a key part of the 'what' (e.g. in working out what tasks involve forward or backward processing, why people make certain choices in different situations, how to study perception or autism).
Psychology is a subject that has many schools within it (like medicine, or politics)
not a job area in as far as people might come across 'psychologists' in various settings they are familiar with.
Clinical psychology is one school within that umbrella - ie one small part. You do the training after you've done a BSc but it is only in that area/tends to be 'on the job' too.
Educational psychologists for example do a BSc and then tend to work in a school then do a similar later training to specialise in that. But should be as much about adaptations and set-up being better to accommodate all and increase performance and not cause stress etc rather than 'treating the individual' (which is clinical in its ideas of 'the person needs to cope')
Cognitive psychology is a school (in the subject sense) so large it can be an actual school (in the physical sense) in itself. You will get people who go through the postgrads, PhDs, postdocs and so on and work in universities but also lots of other settings where it is relevant (hence noting the air traffic control example, where it is about how exhausting that task is and therefore timelimits before performance is affected by fatigue and how long breaks should be in order that people can 'perform' that task again at the right level as well as working conditions to make it less of a strain on eyes/reduce unnecessary complexity etc).
overlaps like 'consumer behaviour' (marketing and psychology using decision-making, cognitive models and neuro), and AI (artificial intelligence, computing)
It's not generally about 'treating someone' but understanding making the situation more appropriate. e.g. dyslexia but also air traffic control (I'd imagine eye-tracking could input into hours for lorry drivers), making workplaces less damaging or stressful, increasing performance by providing equipment and set-up that reduces unnecessary strain. Because they know what would harm or be problematic for 'normal', but also that in itself is a distribution, and they tend to label/understand the phenomena vs 'disease' or 'disorder'.
They also study fallacy and traps and group think issues, priming and other 'tricks' that make people think inaccurately/believe untrue things or make decisions based on bad information. It looks at memory like ability to remember a face or what happened under different conditions (fear, busyness, distractions), or memory in a more workplace/exam context and how the different types work and vary over different individuals. They look at intelligence, what it is and whether a test is actually testing what might be claimed it is.
There are a lot of other 'schools' and most will be under this latter format - ie not people you'll come across day-to-day calling themselves psychologists in the sense of 'clinical' but maybe neuroscientists (studying stroke, how it repairs after that, or developmental or injury and processing, recovery and different tasks). This is actually the bulk of psychology. And you have to think of it as a subject that looks at the situation as much as the individual - psychiatry is very interested in 'abnormal' but knows little about 'normal' and doesn't adapt the situation. Indeed it
used to not cover strokes, alzheimers, autism as these were the psychology domain that built understanding on a lot of these
Psychology is actually understanding 'the brain' and how it works, but also how on earth you can find that out (they note 'which can't be done by autopsy' and even scans without knowing what complexities layer on what because of the nature of the beast). e.g. perception is sight, sound etc and discrimination of it etc and will involve the architecture of the eyes and so on but also how capable the system is of differentiating speed and whether contrast and distance changes that (think optical illusions in there too)
Due the the accredited degree set-up you can imagine that exempting clinical most of these specialisms need grounding in the basics so you aren't doing silly things like setting up an experiment with an inbuilt optical illusion at a certain time of day or not understanding exhaustion, priming or 'leading questions'/groupthink phenomena. You need to know 'normal brain' abilities and limits to identify issues, but issues to identify which aspects those parts of the brain play a hand in.
They work in labs (psychology labs not test tube ones - though some areas of those will have such equipment if it is relevant) with relevant equipment which might be eye-tracking set-ups or seemingly normal rooms with various cameras for tasks or things like sleep labs, think experiments relevant to the task in hand. They can also be occupational in the sense they'd go in and study a workplace and how it impacts the individuals.
Psychology is looking at how the brain works, and all the complexities of what controls what and is involved with what tasks - conditions often get covered because they help to further understanding of this e.g. injuries to certain parts = certain functions being changed. As they try and unpick how certain tasks and thinking layer on top of each other then studying different injuries or developmental differences provides comparators.
It's why stroop tests and eye tracking and other tests are a big feature because they are trying to unpick the various phenomena of how cognition works, and things like tiredness, priming, multiple information sources (contradicting each other or saying the same thing), factors that increase complexities of tasks. Hence the good at 'controlling for' things others don't know exist inbuilt into their methodology.
