Cognitive models - some temporal constraints derived from electrophysiology

While there has been a tremendous progress in the definition of stages and processes involved in cognitive functions such as perception, attention and language, leading to the generation of complex cognitive models, information regarding the time course of activity and the temporal contingencies of the modules involved have been largely neglected. This article stresses that there is a wealth of data from electrophysiological experiments in humans that could serve as a means to constrain cognitive models in the temporal dimension. Several examples using event-related brain potentials are used to illustrate how such data could bear on the conception of cognitive models.