Cognitive science





Cognitive science is usually defined as the scientific study either of mind
(e.g. Flanagan??) or of intelligence (e.g. Luger 1994). Practically every
introduction to Cognitive Science also stresses that it is highly
inter-disciplinary; it is often said to consist of, take part in, and/or
collaborate with psychology (especially cognitive psychology), linguistics,
neuroscience, artificial intelligence (neural network research in
particular), and philosophy (especially philosophy of mind and philosophy of
mathematics, but also with applications in philosophy of science).

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, 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.

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/modelling, 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.

Particular subtopics of Cognitive Science arguably include perception,
attention, consciousness and memory.

As described, Cognitive Science is an expansive and exhilarating vista.
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, non-human animals, 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.

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 is 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.

Key Findings

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 Nunez,
2000. Basis of cognitive science of mathematics.

Theories

One of the most universally affirmed ideas of cognitive science is the
importance of the unconscious mind; many, if not most, important mental
processes are considered to be inaccessible to the conscious, introspecting
observer. ... Anyone who has ever forgotten something and then remembered it
will be familiar with the idea that some things are simply unavailible to
you at some times. ... Linguists find on one hand that people - even the
young and the uneducated - form sentences in ways seemingly 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, and
linguists must resort to very indirect methods to determine what those rules
might be. Thus, if speech is indeed governed by rules, those rules seem to
lie below conscious consideration. This may leave cognitive science's claim
to study what we think and feel in the same awkward position occupied by
Freud's theories...

Probably most cognitive scientists believe the Mind/Brain Identity Theory,
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 as your computer as a physical
object implements a virtual machine on which your word-processor runs).

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 stupid
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.

Cognitive Science tends to view the world outside the mind much as other
sciences do; thus it has an objective, observer-independent existence.

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.

Experimental Methods

     what are the methodologies? why are they used? when were they invented?
     etc. this should somehow relate to the entries for
     psychology/linguistics

   * 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: e.g., if reaction times vary proportionally
with the number of elements in a search task, then it is evident that the
search task involves serial processing and not parallel processing.

   * grammaticality judgements

The primary basis of Chomskyan psycholinguistics is the grammaticality
judgement. A native speaker of a language is asked whether or not a sentence
is grammatically correct, independent of whether or not it makes sense
(e.g., 'colorless green ideas sleep furiously.') Collections of these
grammaticality judgements are used to generate putative formal (purely
syntactic) descriptions of human languages in terms of grammars. (For more
on what these are, 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 English grammar,
and the exclusive use of orthographic (written) rather than verbal
sentences.

   * 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.

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.