Cognitive Science
Modified: 2023-08-13 (4:00 PM CDST)
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One of the newest fields that studies behavior is cognitive science.
- Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary field that draws not only
on psychology, but also on computer science, linguistics, artificial
intelligence, logic, and the neurosciences. Cognitive science is a
"hot" field right now, meaning that many are becoming interested in
it, and that research dollars are being allocated to it as well.
- Cognitive science studies behavior, but in a different way than
psychology. For most psychologists, behavior is the object of study,
but for cognitive scientists, behavior is a dependent variable of
cognition. For cognitive science, cognition, not behavior, is the
object of study.
- Cognition exists in humans, animals, and in
machines. In humans and animals, cognition evolved, whereas in
machines it is created by humans. A good example of the difference
between evolved and created cognition is how humans and computers
each play chess. Chess is a human game, but now computer programs can
also play. For years, the best programs played each other, and then,
the winner played a human grand master player. Until 1997, humans always one. But, a special IBM computer, Deep Blue, along with its software, beat the then current human world champion, Gary Kasparov. Deep Blue, of course, did not play or approach the game of chess as a human player would. Instead, it used its large memory to search far ahead for good possible moves, something impossible for a human.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) is part of cognitive science. Surely you have heard about ChatGPT and the impact it has had recently?
- So, anything that thinks in any way could be a subject for a
cognitive scientist. However, the behavior of the thinking object
will not be the point of study; rather, the point of study will be
the mechanisms that lead to the subject's behavior. That difference
in emphasis, toward cognition and using behavior as a clue for that
cognition, is what differentiates cognitive science, strictly
defined, from psychology. However, cognitive science is an inclusive
term and many psychologists would consider themselves cognitive
scientists without adopting the definition of cognitive science given
above.
- Robotics and autonomous navigation are two other related areas. The ultimate goal of both is to create machines and systems that can successfully work in the natural environment.
- Another definition of cognitive science is:
- "Cognitive science is the study of intelligence and intelligent
systems, with particular reference to intelligent behavior as
computation. .... Cognitive science can be approached in several
ways. .... The principal contributing disciplines are experimental
and cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence (within computer
science), linguistics, philosophy (especially logic and
epistemology), neuroscience and some others (anthropology, economics,
and social psychology ...)" [Simon, H. A., & Kaplan, C. A.
(1989). Foundations of cognitive science. In M. Posner (Ed.),
Foundations of Cognitive Science [pp. 1-47]. Cambridge, MA:
The MIT Press].
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