A Companion to Cognitive Sience |
In their "The Life of Cognitive Science," the Introductory chapter in A Companion to Cognitive Science, William Bechtel, Adele Abrahamsen, and George Graham, begin by "prematurely
characterizing cognitive science as "the multidisciplinary scientific study of cognition and its role in intelligent agency. It examines what cognition is, what it does, and how it works" (3). Then they note immediately afterward that the questions this characterization of CS implies—which disciplines?, which methods?—are not answered "without dissent" and that each answer inspires controversy. They prefer, instead, to offer a history of a movement initiated by disatisfaction with the reigning behaviorist "anti-mentalism." Accepting Howard Gardner's selection of George Miller's founding date of the "cognitivist revolution" in 1956 (6, A History of Mind's New Science 28ff.), they retell his hi-story and update it past 1985. Thus they provide a context for characterizing the cognitive science movment. Their story is about "the development of cognitive science as an intellectual enterprise and as an institution" (6). They emphasize that the institutional aspects of the intellectual enterprise are critical.
ABSTRACT cognitive science research issues. disciplines included and excluded. adherence to the computational model of the mind. the computational / connectionist controversy. future research directions. comments. |
cognitive science research areas related to communication
Part II of A Companion to Cognitive Science is a series of essays on "Areas of Study in Cognitive Science." Below is a list of the areas. Those listed in CAPS are central to communication studies. Those in bold are related to areas commonly studied in communication research.
- analogy (interpresonal communication)
- anmal cognition
- attention (communication theory)
- brain mapping
- COGNITIVE ANTHROPOLOGY (inter-cultural communication—differences in categorization)
- cognitive linguistic development
- conceptual change (communication theory)
- conceptual organization (small group communication, communication theory)
- consciousness
- decision making (small group communication)
- emotions (communication theory, interpersonal communication)
- imagery & spatial representation (visual communication)
- language evolution and neuromechansims
- language processing (communication theory)
- lingugistic theory (communication theory)
- machine learning
- memory (communication theory)
- perception (visual communication)
- perception: color
- problem solving (small group communication)
- reasoning (argumentation)
- social cognition (interpersonal & group communication)
- unconscious intelligence (intra-personal communication)
- understanding texts (communication theory)
- word meaning (communication theory)
Of the 24 areas identified, 18 intersect with communication studies and 7 are directly related (in some instances using the same terms).
It is worth noting that mediated communication is not represented in the list. This is probably an area in which communication studies can contribute to cognitive science.
modularity of the mind
A chapter in A Companion to Cognitive Science is devoted to "Modualarity" authored by Irene Appelbaum (philosophy). She reviews Fodor's arguments about modularity and his conclusion about "the non-existence of cognitive science." Then she reviews researches in linguistics and neuropsychology on the modularity of the mind. Finally, she discusses Annette Karmiloff-Smith's developmental view of modularity. She concludes that "some form of the claim tha the mind contains independent functional subsystems is accepted as a competitive hypothesis in most disciplines bordering on cognitive science—philosophy, linguistics, psychology, and neruopsychology" (635).
disciplines included and excluded
In "Coming of age: downwards and outwards," Bechtel, Abrahamsen, and Graham indicate that at the time of publication, pychology and neuroscience were the dominant disciplines with computer science, sociocultural studies, philosophy, and lingustics as contributing disciplines (94). They contend that "cognitive science has been, and promises to remain, broadly interdisciplinary" (95). They anticipate that additional disciplines will enter the collaborations (98).
methods included and excluded
In Part III, Bechtel an Graham identify ten "methodologies of cognitive science": AI, Behavioral experimentation, cognitive ethology, deficits and pathologies, ethnomethodology, functional analysis, neuroimaging, protocol analysis, single neuron electrophysiology, and structural analysis. Of the ten, varients of functional analysis, protocol analysis, and structural analysis are conducted by communication scholars.
adherence to the computational model of the mind
In the concluding section, "Coming of age: downwards and outwards," of their "The Life of Cognitive Science," Bechtel, Abrahamsen, and Graham indicate that it is too early to tell whether the computational model of the mind was a "false step" (92). However, they are not committed to its ongoing tenure as the governing model and are open to the possibility that it may be replaced by a model of the brain emerging from neuroscience (and/or psychopharmacology 95) if not by dynamical systems theory (92).
the computational / connectionist controversy
William Bechtel and George Graham's A Companion to Cognitive Science offers a much broader view of the field than Dawson's Understanding Cognitive Science though both were published in 1998. The difference may be attributed to Dawson's narrower focus—the computational/connectionist controversy. It is notable that in A Companion to CS, the computational/connectionist controversy is construed in less "global" terms and that cognitive linguistics is included under the heading of "Identity Crisis" (77ff., italics mine). Both the connectionist views (of Rumelhart/McClelland and the cognitive linguistic views of Lakoff/Langacker/Fauconnier are treated quite sympathetically in this section.
Bechtel, Abrahamsen, and Graham in their observations about Dreyfus' critique of computational models, note that "cognitive science my have to take seriously that our cognitive systems are embodied and situated in the world, a theme that, as we have noted, a variety of contempporary researchers are pusuing" (67). This opens the door for communication as a contributor to cognitive science since it researches communication situations.
- on communication studies and discourse
Bechtel, Abrahamsen, and Graham's account of Chomsky's impact on cognitive science after the publication of Syntactic Structures, reflected in his Language and Mind (1968) was based on his assertion that "the primary data for linguistic analysis should be speakers' judgments as to which sentences are grammatical" (41). He was able to represent the results of these judgments in tree diagrams that were computational in character. Communication studies persistently refers to "messages" as its focal concept. This is somewhat misleading because the connotation of "message" is a brief text. (See "Messages as the Outcomes of Signification.") In the main, communication research focuses on texts that includes multiple messages, e.g., conversations, commercials, TV programs, websites, etc. It's evidence parallels Chomsky's—the receivers' "judgments." In addition, it has a diagrammatical aspect—discourse analysis of frames.
- on dynamical systems theory (DST)
Bechtel, Abrahamsen, and Graham note that DST poses a "radical" challenge to CS in that the theory rejects the representation/computation framework and modularity assumptions. However, the theory is mostly mathematical and the basic reference point is physics. It seems sensible to stay with neruoscience and pyschology.
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September 13, 2007
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