Is There Communication Without Cognition? |
ABSTRACT The argument in Communication and Cognition can be summed up in the sentence: there is no communication without cognition. Cognitive abilities are governed by communicative motives. The principle objection to this claim is that machines can communicate with each other, but they can do so only by mimicking cognition. "Computerized cognition" is governed by the motive of its programmer prior to the automation of a particular cognitive process. Yet, communication research has bracketed out intra-personal communication which brackets out most cognitive abilities. If we re-introduce search into intrapersonal communication, however, its study would show that human communication is impossible without cognition. |
The argument in Communication and Cognition.
The argument in Communication and Cognition can be summed up in the sentence: there is no communication without cognition. Each of the entries on the components of communication—senders, channel, code, message, noise, receiver—is an argument that the component discussed entails cognitive abilities.
- SENDERS: In the context of human communication, a "sender"—at a minimum—sends "messages." As often as not these messages are discourses. Thus a sender—at a minimum—encodes. (Senders)
- MESSAGES: What the sender sends the receivers is the outcome of the sender's cognitive abilities. (Messages)
- CODES: When we consider the variety of code systems and their situated cognitive uses, it is as difficult to separate them as it was for Yeats to separate the dancer from the dance. (Codes)
- CONTEXTS: To sum up the conclusion of the argument in this entry, we can say that "contexts require contextualizing," a cognitive ability. (Contexts)
- RECEIVERS: The reception of texts is a hailstorm of cognitive reactions. (Receivers)
The entry on "noise" argues that this mind-as-machine term does not account for miscommunication which is the cognitive phenomenon it addresses (Noise). The entry on "channels" argues that channels are just that, devices through which significations pass (Channels).
The general argument foregrounds the concept of a "communication matrix" in which it is misguided to consider any of the elements of communication in isolation. This matrix is cognitive in character.
Cognitive abilities are often governed by communicative motives
Many, if not all, cognitive abilities, particularly those associated with memory, have relatively clear-cut communicative motives when employed in communication situations. The ability to access memory systems, to deploy mental models in working memory, to manipulate symbols, to encode and decode, to interpret, and so on are readily tied to communication.
Those that are not necessarily linked to the process of communicating are often indispensable to it. For example, perception, obviously can occur outside of communicative situations. However, in intrapersonal communications, perception is inseparable from understanding as Gestalt psychologists have demonstrated. (See the section on "intrapersonal communication" below.)
But machines can communicate with each other
The principle objection to the claim that communication depends upon cognition is the fact that machines can communicate with each other, the implication being that machines do not have cognitive abilities. While this is true in a literal sense, it is also misleading to a certain extent. For example, is "artificial intelligence" (AI) intelligence? From a conceptual point of view it is. However, it is not "human" intelligence. It is a simulation of human intelligence. From this perspective, machines communicate with each other only by mimicking cognition. There is a second sense in which machines communicating with each other entails cognition.
"Computerized" cognition (as in AI) is governed by the programmer's communicative motive prior to the automation of a particular cognitive process. This is to say that computer communication or any other machine communication is dependent upon programmers and thereby on cognition.
In the last analysis, however, the field of communication studies, at present, is not much concerned with machine communication. In most respects, this is a "non-issue."
Communication Studies has bracketed out intra-personal communication which brackets out most cognitive abilities
The field of communication studies has it roots in social science but also in cybernetics and information theory. In his History of Communication Study: A Biographical Approach, Evertett M. Rogers includes chapters on "Norbert Wiener and Cybernetics" and "Claude E. Shannon's Information Theory." He notes that "Weiner's theory [of "feedback"] is an important influence on communication study, particularly on the Palo Alto school of interactionist communication scholars" (386). He also notes that
Claude Shannon's information theory, first published in 1948 as two articles in the Bell System Technical Journal, almost immediately had an impact on many scientific fields. It remains central to communication study today; it shaped the directions taken by the field of human communication, determined many of its main concepts, and contributed toward the closer intellectual integration of this field that arose from diverse multidisciplinary roots. (411)
The same persons and the same theories are also at the multidisciplinary roots of cognitive science. It is surprising, then, that at the turn of the 21st century, communication scholars have not borrowed as heavily from the intellectual tradition of which cognitive science is a part.
Whatever the historical conditions that led to this phenomenon, it seems that the study of communication in the last half of the 20th century avoided questions about how the mind works.
One of the interesting aspects of this "avoidance" is the brief history and quick demise of research into intra-personal communication. A search for "intrapersonal communication" on Amazon.com turns up:
- three items all "unavailable";
- one textbook on the subject, Talk to Yourself: Experiencing Intrapersonal Communication by Genelle Austin-Lett and Jan Sprague. published in 1976 which is more of a "workbook" on learning how to "talk to yourself";
- A Feminist Tarot: A Guide to Intrapersonal Communication (1977) by Sally Gearhart and Susan Rennie which is exactly what the title advertizes.
- Processing Communication: Information Processing in Intrapersonal Communication by Blaine Goss (which is not in the C-CS library).
- Meaning and Mind: An Intrapersonal Approach to Human Communication (1989) by Leonard Shedlestky; which is intended to guide students in "meta-cognition."
- Intrapersonal Communication Processes, (1989) edited by Charles V. Roberts and Kittie W. Watson, which is a collection of articles on the subject by 34 communication scholars.
- Intrapersonal Communication: Different Voices, Different Minds (1994) by Donna R. Vocate (which is not in the C-CS library).
In his "Introduction" to Intrapersonal Communication Processes—the only text listed that deals with research on intrapersonal communication, Larry L. Barker writes:
Relatively few books have the potential to define and organize a new segment of a discipline. This book is one of those rare examples. For the first time, Intrapersonal Communication Processes: Original Essays brings together diverse elements of intrapersonal communication and integrates the separate parts into a unified whole. Although the essays are written by numerous scholars representing diverse academic backgrounds and research interests, this book maintains a level of consistency that is rare in edited volumes. This is due, in part, to the careful screening and manuscript development by the two co-editors, Charles Roberts and Kittie Watson. The editors, both "champions" of the domain of intrapersonal communication processes in their own right, have effectively maintained a balance between academic integrity (as is evidenced by the inclusion of over eighty pages of references in this volume) and teachability/readability. (vii)
Barker's introduction makes it clear that the collection was intended (at least in his mind) to stake out a claim in the conceptual landscape of communication research and theory. As far as I can tell, this did not happen.
Part II of Intrapersonal Communication Processes is devoted to "Cognitive Approaches" to intrapersonal communication and Part III to "Psycho-physiological Approaches," including an essay on "neurological processing implications." There is also a part devoted to the relationship between intra- and inter-personal communication. If this volume is any sort of index to what might have happened had the field of intrapersonal communication been firmly established, it would have linked communication research to cognitive science research.
Without speculating about conditions that might have determined the reception of intrapersonal communication as a sub-field of communication research, it is sufficient to note that a "new segment of a discipline" did not take form.
human communication is impossible without cognition.
If it were the case that human beings are not able to monitor their utterances as they make them nor their meanings as they construct them, then it would be difficult to make a case for research in intrapersonal communication. But, human beings are capable of monitoring themselves.
Oddly, textbooks in interpersonal communication—DeVito's for instance—refer to intrapersonal communication and they employ various concepts dealing with it—self-monitoring, self-awareness, self-esteem, self-concept—but it is pushed so far into the background of the texts that readers would be likely to assume it has little relevance to the topics under discussion.
One can speculate that evidence of self-monitoring and self-talk is not deemed as reliable as evidence of other forms of communication. And this may have been the case. However, as cognitive science has evolved, evidence about cognitive activity has been accumulating. Recent developments in cognitive linguistics concerning mental models and the cognitive abilities that are used in construal suggest that intrapersonal communication plays a role in conceptual blending and other forms of linguistic construction. The mere fact that we are capable of taking different perspectives on what we experience is an index of cognitive operations of selection that have to be factored into language use. The circumstance that much of cognition is habitual and not available to our conscious awareness is a compelling reason to study the relations between communication and cognition. Neglecting these relations would be like trying to explain how a car runs without opening its hood or referring to its engine.
At this point in the argument, I believe it be asserted that the field of communication should be studied with the analytic tools of cognitive science.
jjs
Notes:
.This issue is discussed in "The Field of Communication" and in "The Evolution of Communication Theory." See the discussion of David Downing's "knowledge contract" in "The Field of Communication," particularly footnote 3
← previous | next →
last revised:
September 4, 2007
Send comments to jjs.
copyright © jjs, 2007