Some people are interested in vision, others in signal transduction; and some use vision as a sandbox to study signal transduction. That third set might write grants stating that they seek to understand the neuronal basis of vision, perhaps with a view towards curing diseases. But deep down inside they’re turned on by the prospect of understanding a beautiful, well-honed signal transduction cascade and have determined that pulsing photons at a retinal photoreceptor cell is a suitable model to scratch that itch.
That third neighborhood is where I hang out with respect to the neurobiological study of cognition. The production of certain aspects of cognition provides I think (I hope) a useful sandbox that engages biological processes that I expect will be beautiful and therefore satisfying to elucidate. If by some miracle that helps us to better understand the cognitive process itself, how delightful! But that is not my goal; nor do I believe it is a reasonable one except in special cases, for reasons that Marr made clear long ago, and Krakauer (and others) have recently reminded us of. Leave cognition to the psychologists; I am just a blue-collar biologist interested in studying the biological processes that it engages.