How do you define "methodological approaches" in neuropsychology/psychology?

Question

For example, in the paper below

Fani, N., King, T. Z., Powers, A., Hardy, R. A., Siegle, G. J., Blair, R. J., ... & Bradley, B. (2018). Cognitive and neural facets of dissociation in a traumatized population. Emotion.

What is its methodological approach? Do you talk about "assessments" and "MRI"? or something else?

Answer 1

To have a "methodological approach" means that you use a pre-planned set of steps or tasks to accomplish a goal. When applied to neuropsychological research, this means that scientists use a pre-planned set of steps to gather the information they will use in their study. We should also remember that research in-general is a "methodological approach" in and of itself. This is because it is guided by each step of the scientific method. 

Fani & King et. al. (2018), used scientific method to conduct research to learn about a traumatized brain's ability to pay attention when exposed to distractions that are emotional in nature. Fani & King et. al. (2018) needed to add additional "methodological approaches" to their research in order to make sure they would collect the right kind of data (information) and enough data to learn what they hoped about the traumatized brain. 

Yes, fMRI was one methodological approach used within the Fani & King et. al. (2018) study. According to the abstract, fMRI was used to image the brains of 46 study participants. Using fMRI to collect the same data about the brain in the same format for all 46 participants allowed the researchers to compare and contrast the similarities and differences of all 46 participants. 

Another example of using a method (pre-planned set of steps) to collect data (information) was conducting the Multi-scale Dissociation Inventory (MDI) to determine which study participants should be defined as having high levels of dissociation as opposed to low levels of dissociation. Other methods to collect data, according to the abstract, included: "neuropsychological testing" (I'm unsure of which specific test), a "task of visual memory" (again, the abstract does not specify the exact task), an "executive functioning task" (again, unspecified), and the Affective Number Stroop (ANS) test. 

And yes! These methods discussed above are also forms of assessment. When we assess someone using a tool (like the MDI), we are using a methodical approach to gather information (data) about the person. This data allows us to determine how a study participant fits into the study. In the case of Fani & King et. al. (2018), MDI is an example of a method used to assess to what severity each study participant experiences dissociation. 

Just remember, any time research is published in a reputable journal, you know it used the scientific method to guide the research project. Any set of steps found within that were used to gather information in a cohesive way is part of that study's methodology. The combinations of tools, like assessments, that can be used to gather data for research are endless!