| Cognitive science is usually defined as the scientific study either of mind or of
intelligence (e.g. Luger 1994). Practically every
introduction to cognitive science also stresses that it is highly interdisciplinary; it is often said to consist of, take part in, and collaborate with psychology (especially cognitive psychology), artificial intelligence, linguistics and
psycholinguistics, philosophy (especially philosophy of mind),
neuroscience, logic, robotics, anthropology and biology (including biomechanics).
Overview
Cognitive science tends to view the world outside the mind much as other sciences do; thus it has an objective,
observer-independent existence. Cognitive science is usually seen as compatible with and interdependent with the physical
sciences, and makes frequent use of the scientific method, as
well as simulation or modeling, often comparing the output of models with aspects of human behavior. Still, there is much
disagreement about the exact relationship between cognitive science and other fields, and the inter-disciplinary nature of
cognitive science is largely both unrealized and circumscribed.
Cognitive science has much to its credit. Among other accomplishments, it has given rise to models of human cognitive bias and risk perception, and
has been influential in the development of behavioral finance,
part of economics. It has also given rise to a new theory of the philosophy of mathematics, and many theories of artificial intelligence, persuasion and coercion. It has made its presence firmly known in
philosophy of language and epistemology - a modern revival of rationalism - as well as constituting a substantial wing of modern
linguistics.
Cognitive science?
The term "cognitive" in "cognitive science" is "used for any kind of mental operation or structure that can be studied in
precise terms." (Lakoff and Johnson, 1999) This conceptualization is very broad, and should not be confused with how "cognitive"
is used in some traditions of analytic philosophy, where "cognitive" has to do only with formal rules and truth conditional
semantics. (Nonetheless, that interpretation would bring one close to the historically dominant school of thought within
cognitive science on the nature of cognition - that it is essentially symbolic, propositional, and logical.)
The earliest entries for the word "cognitive" in the OED take it to mean roughly pertaining to "to the action or process of knowing". The first
entry, from 1586, shows the word was at one time used in the context of discussions of Platonic theories of knowledge. Most in cognitive science, however,
presumably do not believe their field is the study of anything as certain as the knowledge sought by Plato.
Philosophy
Many but not all who consider themselves cognitive scientists have a functionalist view of mind/intelligence, which means that, at least in theory,
they study mind and intelligence from the perspective that these attributes could perhaps (at least someday) be properly
attributed not only to human beings but also to, say, other animal species, alien life forms or particularly advanced computer
sytems. This perspective is one of the reasons the term "cognitive science" is not exactly coextensive with neuroscience, psychology, or some
combination of the two.
Theories
Mind/brain identity theory
The mind/brain identity theory is the idea that, whatever "mind" and "intelligence" are, they are rooted strictly in the
brain, and do not make use of, depend on, or interact with anything non-physical. Nonetheless, there is reasonable consensus that
there is sense in talking about the organization of the mind without talking about the organization of the brain, and that
cognitive scientists are not simply neuroscientists. Often the justification for this takes place by reference to different
levels of analysis. A cognitive scientist is likely to assert that what he says about reasoning is true at the symbolic level of
abstraction, while what the neuroscientist says is true at the physical level implementing the symbolic level (much like a
computer as a physical object implements a virtual machine on which a word-processor runs). An exploration of this is found in
the Chinese Room argument, which proposes a gedanken experiment to
elucidate potential loci for "cognition".
Quantum mind theory
There exist several different quantum models of mind. In one class,
the brain is considered a quantum machine; in another, the brain is a classical machine that reduces the universal consciousness
function.
Biocognitive theory
A model proposed by Mario E. Martinez in which cognition, biology and historical culture coemerge as an inseparable
bioinformational field that contextualizes personal reality and influences health and longevity. The theory of biocognition draws
from the research in psychoneuroimmunology and medical anthropology.
Psychology
Particular subtopics of cognitive science arguably include perception,
attention, consciousness
and memory. However, these are all long established fields within psychology, and there
is a constant risk that cognitive scientists will merely reinvent discarded psychological analyses under a new vocabulary.
As described, cognitive science is an expansive field. However, it should be recognized that cognitive science is not equally
concerned with every topic which might bear on the nature and operation of the mind or intelligence. Social and cultural factors,
emotion, consciousness, animal cognition, comparative and evolutionary approaches are frequently de-emphasized or excluded outright, often on the basis of
key philosophical conflicts. Some within the cognitive science community, however, consider these to be vital topics, and
advocate the importance of investigating them.
Experimental methods
- Reaction time: The time between the presentation of a stimulus and an appropriate response can indicate differences
between two cognitive processes, and can indicate some things about their nature. For example, if in a search task the reaction
times vary proportionally with the number of elements, then it is evident that this cognitive process of searching involves
serial and not parallel processing.
- Psychophysics: Psychophysical experiments are an old psychological technique which have been adopted by cognitive
psychology. They typically involve the elictation of verbal judgements of some physical property, e.g. the loudness of a sound.
Correlation of subjective scales between individuals can show cognitive or sensory biases as compared to actual physical
measurements.
- sameness judgements for colors, tones, textures, etc.
- threshold differences for colors, tones, textures, etc.
- Brain imagery, analyzing activity within the brain while performing various cognitive tasks.
- Scores/wins/losses in games
- Recording bodily movements in response to a task (e.g. walking towards an object)
Key findings
(partial list)
Discovery of systemic human cognitive bias, usually credited to
Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, 1967. Basis of behavioral
finance.
Assertion of equivalence of Euler's identity (basis of complex
analysis in mathematics) with basic cognitive processes, George Lakoff
and Rafael E. Núñez, 2000. Basis of the cognitive science of mathematics.
Theories
Linguistics
Linguists find on one hand that humans—even the young and the
uneducated—form sentences in ways apparently governed by very complicated rule systems. On the other hand, the same people
are remarkably inept at identifying the rules that lie behind their own speech. Thus, linguists must resort to very indirect
methods to determine what those rules might be. If speech is indeed governed by rules, they appear to be opaque to any concious
consideration.
The primary basis of Chomskyan psycholinguistics is the grammaticality judgement. A native speaker of a language is asked if a sentence is grammatically correct, independent of whether or not
it makes sense. For example, the sentence 'colorless green ideas sleep furiously' is nonsensical, but is felt by native speakers
of English to be grammatically correct. Collections of these grammaticality judgements are used to generate putative formal
(purely syntactic) descriptions of human languages in terms of grammars. (For details, see formal language, Chomsky hierarchy.) These
grammars, in turn, are held to describe the speaker's linguistic competence. Other approaches to linguistics have characterized
this approach as too artificial (at least as an exclusive linguistic program), questioning the meaning of grammaticality
judgements, a much too frequent emphasis on the English language, and the exclusive use of orthographic (written) rather than
verbal sentences.
Artificial intelligence
Main article: Artificial intelligence
Goals
Strong AI versus Weak AI
Turing test.
Theories
Symbolic vs Connectionist approaches There is some debate in the field as to whether the mind is "best" viewed as a
huge array of small but individually feeble elements (i.e. neurons), or as a collection of higher-level structures, such as
"symbols", "schemas", "plans", and rules. One way to view the issue is whether it is possible to accurately simulate a human
brain on a computer without accurately simulating the neurons that seem to make up the human brain.
Symbolicism/GOFAI
Artificial intelligence. Turing machine. Chinese
Room. Minds, Machines and Gödel.
Connectionism
Connectionism. Neural
nets.
Dynamical systems
Dynamical systems theory of cognition (special application of dynamical systems theory).
Universalist Tendency
is also a proposed theoretical tendency, suspected to become prominent over the next century, in which people are expected to
create overarching theories of everything that attempt to combine findings from various disciplines to explain the deeper
processes of life.
Notable researchers in cognitive science and related fields
External links
References
- George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. Philosophy In The Flesh. Basic Books, 1999.
- Luger, George. Cognitive science : the science of intelligent systems. San Diego : Academic Press,
c1994
- Bechtel, W. et. al. Ed. (1999). A Companion to Cognitive Science. Blackwell Companions to Philosophy. Malden, Massachusetts.
Blackwell Publishers.
- Gardner, Howard. (1985). The Minds New Science. Basic Books.
- Baumgartner, P., et. al. Eds. (1995). Speaking Minds: Interviews With Twenty Eminent Cognitive Scientists. Princeton, New
Jersey, Princeton University Press.
- Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain.
- Gazzanija, M. S., Ed. Conversations in the Cognitive Neursciences. New York, THe MIT Press.
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