Cognitive Science

Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence, embracing philosophy,
psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology. Its intellectual
origins are in the mid-1950s when researchers in several fields began to develop theories of mind
based on comple representations and computational procedures. Its organi!ational origins are in
the mid-19"0s when the Cognitive #cience #ociety was formed and the $ournal Cognitive
#cience began. #ince then, more than seventy universities in %orth &merica, 'urope, &sia, and
&ustralia have established cognitive science programs, and many others have instituted courses
in cognitive science.
1. History
&ttempts to understand the mind and its operation go bac( at least to the &ncient )ree(s, when
philosophers such as *lato and &ristotle tried to eplain the nature of human (nowledge. +he
study of mind remained the province of philosophy until the nineteenth century, when
eperimental psychology developed. ,ilhelm ,undt and his students initiated laboratory
methods for studying mental operations more systematically. ,ithin a few decades, however,
eperimental psychology became dominated by behaviorism, a view that virtually denied the
eistence of mind. &ccording to behaviorists such as -. .. ,atson, psychology should restrict
itself to eamining the relation between observable stimuli and observable behavioral responses.
+al( of consciousness and mental representations was banished from respectable scientific
discussion. 'specially in %orth &merica, behaviorism dominated the psychological scene
through the 1950s. &round 195/, the intellectual landscape began to change dramatically.
)eorge 0iller summari!ed numerous studies which showed that the capacity of human thin(ing
is limited, with short-term memory, for eample, limited to around seven items. 1e proposed that
memory limitations can be overcome by recoding information into chun(s, mental
representations that re2uire mental procedures for encoding and decoding the information. &t
this time, primitive computers had been around for only a few years, but pioneers such as -ohn
0cCarthy, 0arvin 0ins(y, &llen %ewell, and 1erbert #imon were founding the field of
artificial intelligence. In addition, %oam Choms(y re$ected behaviorist assumptions about
language as a learned habit and proposed instead to eplain language comprehension in terms of
mental grammars consisting of rules. +he si thin(ers mentioned in this paragraph can be viewed
as the founders of cognitive science. 3or a comprehensive review of the history of cognitive
science, see .oden 4500/6.
2. Methods
Cognitive science has unifying theoretical ideas, but we have to appreciate the diversity of
outloo(s and methods that researchers in different fields bring to the study of mind and
intelligence. &lthough cognitive psychologists today often engage in theori!ing and
computational modeling, their primary method is eperimentation with human participants.
*eople, usually undergraduates satisfying course re2uirements, are brought into the laboratory so
that different (inds of thin(ing can be studied under controlled conditions. 3or eample,
psychologists have eperimentally eamined the (inds of mista(es people ma(e in deductive
reasoning, the ways that people form and apply concepts, the speed of people thin(ing with
mental images, and the performance of people solving problems using analogies. 7ur
conclusions about how the mind wor(s must be based on more than 8common sense9 and
introspection, since these can give a misleading picture of mental operations, many of which are
not consciously accessible. *sychological eperiments that carefully approach mental operations
from diverse directions are therefore crucial for cognitive science to be scientific.
&lthough theory without eperiment is empty, eperiment without theory is blind. +o address the
crucial 2uestions about the nature of mind, the psychological eperiments need to be
interpretable within a theoretical framewor( that postulates mental representations and
procedures. 7ne of the best ways of developing theoretical framewor(s is by forming and testing
computational models intended to be analogous to mental operations. +o complement
psychological eperiments on deductive reasoning, concept formation, mental imagery, and
analogical problem solving, researchers have developed computational models that simulate
aspects of human performance. :esigning, building, and eperimenting with computational
models is the central method of artificial intelligence 4&I6, the branch of computer science
concerned with intelligent systems. Ideally in cognitive science, computational models and
psychological eperimentation go hand in hand, but much important wor( in &I has eamined
the power of different approaches to (nowledge representation in relative isolation from
eperimental psychology.
,hile some linguists do psychological eperiments or develop computational models, most
currently use different methods. 3or linguists in the Choms(ian tradition, the main theoretical
tas( is to identify grammatical principles that provide the basic structure of human languages.
Identification ta(es place by noticing subtle differences between grammatical and ungrammatical
utterances. In 'nglish, for eample, the sentences 8#he hit the ball9 and 8,hat do you li(e;9 are
grammatical, but 8#he the hit ball9 and 8,hat does you li(e;9 are not. & grammar of 'nglish
will eplain why the former are acceptable but not the latter.
<i(e cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists often perform controlled eperiments, but their
observations are very different, since neuroscientists are concerned directly with the nature of the
brain. ,ith nonhuman sub$ects, researchers can insert electrodes and record the firing of
individual neurons. ,ith humans for whom this techni2ue would be too invasive, it has become
possible in recent years to use magnetic and positron scanning devices to observe what is
happening in different parts of the brain while people are doing various mental tas(s. 3or
eample, brain scans have identified the regions of the brain involved in mental imagery and
word interpretation. &dditional evidence about brain functioning is gathered by observing the
performance of people whose brains have been damaged in identifiable ways. & stro(e, for
eample, in a part of the brain dedicated to language can produce deficits such as the inability to
utter sentences. <i(e cognitive psychology, neuroscience is often theoretical as well as
eperimental, and theory development is fre2uently aided by developing computational models
of the behavior of groups of neurons.
Cognitive anthropology epands the eamination of human thin(ing to consider how thought
wor(s in different cultural settings. +he study of mind should obviously not be restricted to how
'nglish spea(ers thin( but should consider possible differences in modes of thin(ing across
cultures. Cognitive science is becoming increasingly aware of the need to view the operations of
mind in particular physical and social environments. 3or cultural anthropologists, the main
method is ethnography, which re2uires living and interacting with members of a culture to a
sufficient etent that their social and cognitive systems become apparent. Cognitive
anthropologists have investigated, for eample, the similarities and differences across cultures in
words for colors.
,ith a few eceptions, philosophers generally do not perform systematic empirical observations
or construct computational models. .ut philosophy remains important to cognitive science
because it deals with fundamental issues that underlie the eperimental and computational
approach to mind. &bstract 2uestions such as the nature of representation and computation need
not be addressed in the everyday practice of psychology or artificial intelligence, but they
inevitably arise when researchers thin( deeply about what they are doing. *hilosophy also deals
with general 2uestions such as the relation of mind and body and with methodological 2uestions
such as the nature of eplanations found in cognitive science. In addition, philosophy concerns
itself with normative 2uestions about how people should thin( as well as with descriptive ones
about how they do. In addition to the theoretical goal of understanding human thin(ing, cognitive
science can have the practical goal of improving it, which re2uires normative reflection on what
we want thin(ing to be. *hilosophy of mind does not have a distinct method, but should share
with the best theoretical wor( in other fields a concern with empirical results.
In its wea(est form, cognitive science is $ust the sum of the fields mentioned= psychology,
artificial intelligence, linguistics, neuroscience, anthropology, and philosophy. Interdisciplinary
wor( becomes much more interesting when there is theoretical and eperimental convergence on
conclusions about the nature of mind. 3or eample, psychology and artificial intelligence can be
combined through computational models of how people behave in eperiments. +he best way to
grasp the compleity of human thin(ing is to use multiple methods, especially psychological and
neurological eperiments and computational models. +heoretically, the most fertile approach has
been to understand the mind in terms of representation and computation.