refined Cognitive_science Information, explanation, recent texts, monographs, and related patents.
Information & explanations, latest texts & monographs on Cognitive_science (including recent related patents.)


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 interdisciplinary; 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, other animal species, 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. However, these are all long established fields within psychology, and there is a constant risk that cognitive scientists will merely reinvent discarded psychological analyses under a new vocabulary. 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, animal cognition, 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. Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 Key Findings 2 Theories 3 Experimental Methods 4 Various Issues 5 Notable researchers in cognitive science and related fields 6 Cognitive science? 7 See also 8 External links 9 References Key Findings (partial list) 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.
    • sameness judgements for colors/tones/etc
    • threshold differences for colors/tones/etc
  • brain imagery by means of
  • scores/wins/losses in games
  • recording bodily movements in response to a task (e.g. walking towards an object)
Various Issues
  • simulation vs recreation
Notable researchers in cognitive science and related fields 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. See also External links References
  • George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. Philosophy In The Flesh. Basic Books, 1999.
  • Luger, George. Cognitive science : the science of intelligent systems. San Diego : Academic Press, c1994

This article is adapted from from Wikipedia All Wikipedia article text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker

The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness by Antonio R. Damasio

Infinite Mind: Science of Human Vibrations of Consciousness by Valerie V. Hunt

The Birth of the Mind: How a Tiny Number of Genes Creates the Complexities of Human Thought by Gary Marcus

Tree of Knowledge by Humberto R. Maturana

Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan

SOCIETY OF MIND by Marvin Minsky

The Mind and the Brain : Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force by Jeffrey M. Schwartz

The Hidden Connections: Integrating The Biological, Cognitive, And Social Dimensions Of Life Into A Science Of Sustainability by Fritjof Capra

Causality : Models, Reasoning, and Inference by Judea Pearl

A Brief History of the Mind: From Apes to Intellect and Beyond by William H. Calvin

The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind's Hidden Complexities by Gilles Fauconnier

How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker

ASTONISHING HYPOTHESIS: THE SCIENTIFIC SEARCH FOR THE SOUL by Francis Crick

The Mind and the Brain : Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force by Jeffrey M. Schwartz


Recent Cognitive_science related patents

From USPTO:
6705870: Psychometric assessment testing method
6693630: Method of determining the stability of two dimensional polygonal scenes
6691129: Method and apparatus for binary-oriented set sequencing
6678669: Method for selecting medical and biochemical diagnostic tests using neural network-related applications
6675189: System for learning and applying integrated task and data parallel strategies in dynamic applications
6661431: Method of representing high-dimensional information
6658627: Integrated and authoring and translation system
6654761: Controlling which part of data defining a node-link structure is in memory
6654632: System for processing a subject's electrical activity measurements
6651044: Intelligent sociable computer systems
6636865: Method and apparatus for binary-oriented set sequencing
6632174: Method and apparatus for testing and training cognitive ability
6629087: Methods for creating and editing topics for virtual robots conversing in natural language
6615111: Methods for automatically focusing the attention of a virtual robot interacting with users
6604094: Simulating human intelligence in computers using natural language dialog
6604090: System and method for selecting responses to user input in an automated interface program
6601054: Active acoustic and structural vibration control without online controller adjustment and path modeling
6601051: Neural systems with range reducers and/or extenders
6598043: Classification of information sources using graph structures
6587848: Methods and apparatus for performing an affinity based similarity search
6581048: 3-brain architecture for an intelligent decision and control system
6556977: Methods for selecting, developing and improving diagnostic tests for pregnancy-related conditions
6553355: AUTOPOIETIC NETWORK SYSTEM ENDOWED WITH DISTRIBUTED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR THE SUPPLY OF HIGH VOLUME HIGH-SPEED MULTIMEDIA TELESTHESIA TELEMETRY, TELEKINESIS, TELEPRESENCE, TELEMANAGEMENT, TELECOMMUNICATIONS, AND DATA PROCESSING SERVICES
6549933: Managing, accessing, and retrieving networked information using physical objects associated with the networked information
6535881: Distributed computer database system and method employing intelligent agents
6532401: Methods for automatically verifying the performance of a virtual robot
6529614: Advanced miniature processing handware for ATR applications
6510406: Inverse inference engine for high performance web search
6505191: Distributed computer database system and method employing hypertext linkage analysis
6505181: Recognition system
6499013: Interactive user interface using speech recognition and natural language processing
6493691: ASSEMBLY OF INTERCONNECTED COMPUTING ELEMENTS, METHOD FOR COMPUTER-ASSISTED DETERMINATION OF A DYNAMICS WHICH IS THE BASE OF A DYNAMIC PROCESS, AND METHOD FOR COMPUTER-ASSISTED TRAINING OF AN ASSEMBLY OF INTERCONNECTED ELEMENTS
6480194: Computer-related method, system, and program product for controlling data visualization in external dimension(s)
6470351: Binary-oriented set sequencing
6470333: Knowledge extraction system and method
6463433: Distributed computer database system and method for performing object search
6460049: Method system and computer program product for visualizing an evidence classifier
6453315: Meaning-based information organization and retrieval
6453292: Command boundary identifier for conversational natural language
6438523: Processing handwritten and hand-drawn input and speech input
6438418: Method and apparatus for reduction of pain from electric shock therapies
6435878: Interactive computer program for measuring and analyzing mental ability
6434524: Object interactive user interface using speech recognition and natural language processing
6427142: Intelligent agent workbench
6424973: Search system and method based on multiple ontologies
6405161: Method and apparatus for learning the morphology of a natural language
6384829: Streamlined architecture for embodied conversational characters with reduced message traffic
6377259: Presenting node-link structures with modification
6373483: Method, system and computer program product for visually approximating scattered data using color to represent values of a categorical variable

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