A tale of two explanatory styles in cognitive psychology

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 719-735 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence Shapiro
Keyword(s):  
Functional Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Mechanistic Explanation ◽  
Explanatory Styles

The development of a theory of mechanistic explanation has been a welcome advance over previous theories of explanation, such as deductive nomological explanation. However, despite the claims of some supporters of mechanistic explanation, not all explanation in cognitive science is or should be mechanistic. I defend the claim that functional analysis remains a distinct and legitimate form of explanation within cognitive science.

Psychology: Autonomous or Anomalous?

Dialogue ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Kernohan
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Donald Davidson ◽  
Mental Activity ◽  
Essential Difference ◽  
Anomalous Monism

In a recent series of papers, Donald Davidson has put forward a challenging and original philosophy of mind which he has called anomalous monism. Anomalous monism has certain similarities to another recent and deservedly popular position: functionalist cognitive psychology. Both functionalism, in its materialist versions, and anomalous monism require token-token psychophysical identities rather than type-type ones. (Token identities are identities between individual events; type identities represent a stronger claim of identities between interesting sorts of events.) Both deny that psychology can be translated into, or scientifically reduced to, neurophysiology. Both are mentalistic theories, allowing psychology to make use of intentional descriptions in its theorizing. Anomalous monism uses a belief/desire/action psychology; cognitive science makes use of information-bearing states. But these similarities must not be allowed to conceal an essential difference between the two positions. Cognitive psychology claims to be a science, making interesting, lawlike generalizations for the purpose of explaining mental activity. Anomalous monism denies that psychology is a science by denying that psychological laws can be formulated. Davidson has other ideas for psychology connected with his work on meaning and truth. Hence, the title of one of his essays on anomalous monism is “Psychology as Philosophy”.

Psychological Characteristics of Cognition of Environmental Sculpture Information

2011 ◽  
Vol 187 ◽  
pp. 522-527
Author(s):  
He Yang
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Urban Culture ◽  
Space Environment ◽  
Psychological Characteristics ◽  
Architectural Language ◽  
Psychology Perspective ◽  
Integral Element ◽  
The Relationship

As an integral element of the space environment, the environmental sculpture plays an important role in the decoration of space environment, the expression of urban culture and reflection of the city's character, etc. Environmental sculpture is a visible symbol independent and outside of the sign of nature or architectural language, which has become an important cultural carrier between the communication of environment and people. From the perspective of cognitive science, this paper analyzes the relationship between people, environment and environmental sculpture to explore the psychological characteristics of cognition of environmental sculpture and examines, analyzes and interprets the phenomenon of environmental sculpture from the cognitive psychology perspective, which brings some enlightenment for the design of environment sculpture.

scholarly journals Ecological mechanisms in cognitive science

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 676-696 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabrina Golonka ◽  
Andrew D. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Simple Model ◽  
Circadian Rhythms ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Mechanistic Model ◽  
Mechanistic Explanation ◽  
Perceptual Information ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Time Interaction ◽  
Ecological Mechanisms

In 2010, Bechtel and Abrahamsen defined and described what it means to be a dynamic causal mechanistic explanatory model. They discussed the development of a mechanistic explanation of circadian rhythms as an exemplar of the process and challenged cognitive science to follow this example. This article takes on that challenge. A mechanistic model is one that accurately represents the real parts and operations of the mechanism being studied. These real components must be identified by an empirical programme that decomposes the system at the correct scale and localises the components in space and time. Psychological behaviour emerges from the nature of our real-time interaction with our environments—here we show that the correct scale to guide decomposition is picked out by the ecological perceptual information that enables that interaction. As proof of concept, we show that a simple model of coordinated rhythmic movement, grounded in information, is a genuine dynamical mechanistic explanation of many key coordination phenomena.

scholarly journals How Efficiency Shapes Human Language, TICS 2019

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Gibson ◽  
Richard Futrell ◽  
Steven T. Piantadosi ◽  
Isabelle Dautriche ◽  
Kyle Mahowald ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Information Theory ◽  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Language Research ◽  
The Way

Cognitive science applies diverse tools and perspectives to study human language. Recently, an exciting body of work has examined linguistic phenomena through the lens of efficiency in usage: what otherwise puzzling features of language find explanation in formal accounts of how language might be optimized for communication and learning? Here, we review studies that deploy formal tools from probability and information theory to understand how and why language works the way that it does, focusing on phenomena ranging from the lexicon through syntax. These studies show how apervasive pressure for efficiency guides the forms of natural language and indicate that a rich future for language research lies in connecting linguistics to cognitive psychology and mathematical theories of communication and inference.

scholarly journals A call to arms: time to do cognitive science in Latin America

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
World Region ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Organizational ◽  
Research Domains

Previous theoretical reviews about the development of Psychology in Latin America suggest that Latin American psychology has a promising future. This paper empirically checks whether that status remains justified. In so doing, the frequency of programs/research domains in three salient psychological areas is assessed in Latin America and in two other regions of the world. A chi-square statistic is used to analyse the collected data. Programs/research domains and regions of the world are the independent variables and frequency of programs/research domains per world region is the dependent variable. Results suggest that whereas in Latin America the work on Social/Organizational Psychology is moving within expected parameters, there is a rather strong focus on Clinical/Psychoanalytical Psychology. Results also show that Experimental/Cognitive Psychology is much underestimated. In Asia, however, the focus on all areas of psychology seems to be distributed within expected parameters, whereas Europe outperforms regarding Experimental/Cognitive Psychology research. Potential reasons that contribute to Latin Americas situation are discussed and specific solutions are proposed. It is concluded that the scope of Experimental/Cognitive Psychology in Latin America should be broadened into a Cognitive Science research program.

From Theory to Application

2001 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 779-780
Author(s):  
Ronald A. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Cognitive Theory ◽  
International Association ◽  
Graduate Studies ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Term Paper ◽  
Psychology Theory ◽  
And Performance

Neuropsychology owes much to the pioneering efforts of researchers in cognitive psychology. Theory and methods derived from the cognitive sciences have provided an important foundation for neuropsychology. The Attention and Performance series has been at the vanguard of cognitive psychology, both chronicling major developments in cognitive science that emerged over the past half century, and catalyzing new directions in cognitive theory, method, and application. Most students of psychology can probably recall some time during their undergraduate or graduate studies, pulling from university library shelves, one of the earlier volumes of this series, as they prepared a term paper, thesis, or research project. The 17th volume of Attention and Performance of this edited series was the product of the proceedings of the International Association for the Study of Attention and Performance, held in Haifa, Israel, 30 years after the first edition in 1966. Reviewing the topics covered in the earlier editions, one is struck by the extent to which this series has both mirrored current direction and anticipated shifts in the paradigms of cognitive science.

Cognitive Science of Tourism Experiences

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Noel Scott ◽  
Ana Claudia Campos
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Tourism Research ◽  
Behavioural Approach ◽  
Tourism Experience ◽  
Emotion Memory ◽  
The Way

While other disciplinary approaches such as sociology and anthropology are important, this chapter introduces a cognitivist psychology approach to experience research. Such theoretical discussion may seem of little practical use, but the chapter argues that it is fundamental to understanding how and why experiences are created. The chapter applies theory and concepts from cognitive science (cognitive psychology and neuroscience) in the study of tourism experiences. This provides a different psychological paradigm to the behavioural approach currently in use in much research. The chapter describes the scope of cognitive psychology and neuroscience, its main concepts of cognitive psychology (perception, attention, emotion, memory, consciousness, learning), and their neuronal basis (neuroscience). These concepts are then applied in three topic areas related to tourism experiences: decision making, emotion, and attention. Several applications to tourism experience research are noted. Finally, the chapter discusses the way cognitive psychology concepts can be used in tourism research.

scholarly journals Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Sebastian Löbner ◽  
Thomas Gamerschlag ◽  
Tobias Kalenscher ◽  
Markus Schrenk ◽  
Henk Zeevat
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cognitive Structures ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Empirical Means ◽  
Science Disciplines

AbstractIn order to help to explain cognition, cognitive structures are assumed to be present in the mind/brain. While the empirical investigation of such structures is the task of cognitive psychology, the other cognitive science disciplines like linguistics, philosophy and artificial intelligence have an important role in suggesting hypotheses. Researchers in these disciplines increasingly test such hypotheses by empirical means themselves. In philosophy, the traditional way of referring to such structures is via concepts, i.e. those mental entities by which we conceive reality and with the help of which we reason and plan. Linguists traditionally refer to the cognitive structures as meanings—at least those linguists with a mentalistic concept of meaning do who do not think of meaning as extra-mental entities.

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