The Fields that Compose Cognitive Science

CGSC 1001
Mysteries of the Mind
by Jim Davies
jim@jimdavies.org
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 I put a link on the cuLearn page, which
streams theater B:
 http://livestream.cuol.ca/thb
 With this you can watch the lectures in real
time streamed. Class is Tuesdays and
Thursdays 8:35-9:55pm.
 So if you’re sick or in the T section and want
to participate in the polls or see it sooner, this
is a way you can do it.
 Currently only desktop (flash) is supported.
2

Historically Core Fields:
• Psychology
• Philosophy
• Computer science
• Linguistics
Contemporary Core Field:
• Neuroscience (esp. cognitive neuroscience)
Secondary Fields:
• Education
• Anthropology
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I’m going to mention critiques of all of these fields, but that
does not mean that I endorse these critiques! I am only
repeating critiques I have heard.

Characterized by:
• Subject matter: natural minds, mostly human.
Broadly interested in cognitive functioning, even
when it is erroneous.
• Methods: laboratory experimentation, statistical
analysis, computer cognitive modeling
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 Cognitive Psychology
• Broad field of basic research in human internal mental
processes
 Human factors/Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
• How people psychologically interact with artifacts (human-
designed things), such as user interfaces
 Evolutionary Psychology
• How our evolutionary history has made our minds what
they are
 Psycholinguistics
• Studying language with experiments
 Comparative Psychology
• Animal cognition, sometimes comparing it to human
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 Not enough model building
• You can’t play 20 questions with nature and win
 Dustbowl empiricism
• Not enough theory, there are no theoretical
psychologists
 Methodologically limited
• Cognitive science is possible because psychology
won’t innovate to embrace the methods of the other
fields.
 They underestimate the complexity of
language
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• Subject Matter: usually big questions, what our
concepts mean, otherwise quite broad
• Methods: Thinking and writing.
 Thought experiments
 Conceptual analysis
 Argumentation
 Theorizing from evidence from other fields and
commonsense observations
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 Philosophy of Mind
• Can machines be conscious?
• Functionalism vs. identity theory
• Qualia
• Which animals feel pain?
 Philosophy of Science
• How should science be practiced?
• How is science practiced?
• Philosophy of psychology (the science)
• What mental categories are scientifically legitimate?
 Philosophy of Language
• How do words connect to meanings?
• How can a word refer to something that does not
exist?
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They don’t pay enough attention to
empirical study
They sometimes think that the existence of
a word implies the existence of its intended
referent
They are concerned with too many
unimportant problems
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• Subject Matter: How mental processes can work
on machines, and how computers can effectively
interact with humans
• Methods: building and testing computer programs
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Artificial Intelligence
• Building mental processes with computer
programs.
• To understand and create mental systems
Human-Computer Interaction
• To design computer interfaces that humans can
effectively use.
11

Insufficiently concerned with natural
intelligence
• AI researchers usually don’t care if their programs
work the same way that people or animals do
• Even those doing psychological AI don’t know
enough about empirical findings, or don’t try to
build in the mistakes people make
They are overly optimistic about the future
of AI
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 Characterized by:
• Subject Matter: human spoken or signed natural
language
 NOT computer or animal languages
 NOT (for the most part) written language
• Methods: sound analysis, grammar creation, corpus
analysis
 Most Cognitive Science subfields are defined
by their methods, but linguistics is strongly
characterized by both its subject matter and
methods.
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 Phonology
• How sounds are organized and used in language
 Morphology
• How sound and meaning interact in words
 Syntax
• How sentences may be put together in a language
 Semantics
• Meaning in language
 Pragmatics
• How sentences interact with context to change
meaning (e.g., “how are you?” or “do you have the
time?”
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They build models of language and then
don’t know what to do with them.
They are not familiar with, nor do they try
to interact with, other findings about the
mind.
They only concern themselves with one
part of cognition.
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 Cognitive Neuroscience is characterized by
• Subject matter: how the brain processes information
and creates cognitive processes. The biological
functions of mental phenomena.
• Methods: neuroimaging, single-cell recording,
anatomical observation, computer modeling,
pharmaceutical effects, genetic analysis, etc.
 Overlaps with biological and physiological
psychology, neuropsychology, and the rest of
neuroscience
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Underestimate the complexity of language
and other thought processes.
Completely unable to shed light on many
of the processes everyone else is
interested in.
They tend to be dismissive of other
approaches or reductionist
Lean too far toward nature on the
nature/nurture debate.
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• Subject matter: how people (usually children)
learn, and how we can design education to help
them effectively do it.
• Methods: Naturalistic observation of case studies,
empirical studies
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Case studies are worthless or close to it.
It’s too applied and not telling us enough
about basic cognitive processes.
The controlled studies are poorly done.
• To their credit, they’re very expensive and hard.
They only deal with one part of cognition.
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• Subject matter: Social organization, human
culture, enculturation, cultural change and
transmission, shared knowledge, distributed
cognition, situated cognition
• Methods: Field work, ethnographic observation
and interviewing. Emphasis on qualitative study.
Anthropology includes things like
archeology.
Cultural anthropology includes cognitive.
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Tend to lean too far on the nurture side of
the nature/nurture debate.
Research is too qualitative.
Research is too expensive.
Research does not generalize enough to
be useful.
They are “splitters” rather than “lumpers.”
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Subject matter: Study of minds and
thinking, especially at the information
processing level.
Methodological Definition: Applies
methodologies from multiple disciplines to
multiple problems from those disciplines.
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 A cognitive scientist is any scholarly practitioner studying minds from one of
the associated sub-fields. According to this definition, a philosopher working
on philosophy of mind problems would be considered a cognitive scientist
even if she never read about work in other fields, published in other fields, or
contextualized her findings with the theories and problems in other fields.
 A cognitive scientist is any scholarly practitioner studying minds from one of
the associated sub-fields who has a working knowledge of some of the other
subfields and actively contextualizes her work with the theories and
problems of some of the other subfields. She is active in the cognitive
science community.
 Same as the definition above, except that she actively collaborates with
scholars in other disciplines that use different methods. For example, an
artificial intelligence researcher who works with a neuroscientist to make
computer models of networks that execute some cognitive task.
 A cognitive scientist is any scholarly practitioner studying minds who uses
methodologies from multiple associated subfields. For example, if a linguist
runs experiments on human participants in addition to her traditional
linguistic analysis. She also is a member of the community and
contexualizes her findings.
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The Fields that Compose Cognitive Science

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