# Cognitive Science Cognitive Science is the interdisciplinary study of the mind and its processes, drawing on psychology, [[Linguistics]], [[Artificial Intelligence (AI)]], neuroscience, philosophy, and anthropology. The field emerged in the 1950s from the "cognitive revolution" that rejected behaviorism in favor of understanding internal mental representations and computations. Key founding figures include [[Noam Chomsky]] (linguistics), [[George Miller]] (psychology), [[Herbert Simon]] and Allen Newell (AI), and [[Marvin Minsky]] (AI). The central question of cognitive science is: How does the mind work? Researchers study perception, attention, [[Memory]], language, reasoning, [[Decision Making]], and consciousness using diverse methods—behavioral experiments, brain imaging, computational modeling, and AI systems. The field is unified by the "computational theory of mind"—the idea that mental processes can be understood as information processing, though this assumption is debated. Cognitive science has practical applications in AI, education, design, and mental health. ## The Cognitive Hexagon ``` Philosophy │ │ Linguistics───┼───Psychology ╲ │ ╱ ╲ │ ╱ ╲ │ ╱ ╲ │ ╱ ╲ │ ╱ Anthropology──┼──Neuroscience │ │ AI / Computer Science All disciplines interconnect through the study of mind ``` ## Contributing Disciplines | Discipline | Contribution | |------------|--------------| | **[[Cognitive Psychology]]** | Experimental study of mental processes | | **[[Linguistics]]** | Language structure and acquisition | | **[[Artificial Intelligence (AI)]]** | Computational models of cognition | | **Neuroscience** | Brain mechanisms underlying cognition | | **Philosophy** | Nature of mind, consciousness, knowledge | | **Anthropology** | Culture and cognition | ## Core Topics | Topic | Key Questions | | ----------------------- | ---------------------------------------------- | | **[[Perception]]** | How do we interpret sensory information? | | **[[Attention]]** | How do we select what to process? | | **[[Memory]]** | How do we encode, store, retrieve information? | | **Language** | How do we understand and produce language? | | **Reasoning** | How do we draw conclusions? | | **[[Decision Making]]** | How do we choose among options? | | **Consciousness** | What is subjective experience? | | **Learning** | How do we acquire new knowledge? | ## Historical Timeline | Year | Event | |------|-------| | 1948 | Shannon's information theory | | 1956 | Dartmouth AI conference | | 1956 | Miller's "Magical Number Seven" | | 1957 | Chomsky's *Syntactic Structures* | | 1959 | Chomsky's review of Skinner | | 1960 | Center for Cognitive Studies (Harvard) | | 1967 | Neisser's *Cognitive Psychology* | | 1975 | First Cognitive Science Society meeting | | 1979 | Journal *Cognitive Science* founded | ## Key Figures | Person | Contribution | | ------------------- | ----------------------------------------- | | [[Noam Chomsky]] | Universal grammar, language faculty | | [[George Miller]] | Working memory limits, WordNet | | [[Herbert Simon]] | Bounded rationality, problem solving | | [[Marvin Minsky]] | Frames, AI approaches to mind | | Allen Newell | Physical symbol systems | | [[Ulric Neisser]] | Named cognitive psychology | | [[Daniel Kahneman]] | Heuristics and biases | | [[Jerry Fodor]] | Modularity of mind | | [[David Marr]] | Levels of analysis (computational theory) | ## Marr's Three Levels | Level | Question | Example (Vision) | |-------|----------|------------------| | **Computational** | What is computed and why? | Extract 3D structure from 2D image | | **Algorithmic** | How is it computed? | Edge detection algorithms | | **Implementation** | What is the physical substrate? | Visual cortex neurons | ## Approaches to Cognition | Approach | View | |----------|------| | **Computationalism** | Mind as information processor | | **Connectionism** | Neural networks, distributed representation | | **Embodied cognition** | Cognition shaped by body and environment | | **Dynamical systems** | Cognition as continuous dynamics | | **Enactivism** | Cognition as sensorimotor interaction | ## References - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science - Miller, G.A. (2003). "The cognitive revolution: a historical perspective" ## Related - [[Cognitive Psychology]] - [[Artificial Intelligence (AI)]] - [[Linguistics]] - [[Neuroscience]] - [[Philosophy of Mind]] - [[Memory]] - [[Decision Making]] - [[George Miller]] - [[Noam Chomsky]] - [[Herbert Simon]]