Chapter Thirteen
E N D
Presentation Transcript
Chapter Thirteen Conclusion: Where We Go From Here
The benefits of cognitive science • Brings together diverse theoretical perspectives. • Widespread influence of cognitive theory on other disciplines and in education. • Practical applications in medicine, engineering, and robotics. • Advances in diagnosis and treatment of disease and disorders.
Working together on working memory Cross-disciplinary integration can help us to better understand the relationship between a given mental Process such as working memory and other mental processes.
Working together on working memory • Philosophy. Asks critical questions about the process. • Restricted to visual & spatial representations? • How are numbers represented? • Do these representations have meaning? • Is there a single central executive?
Working together on working memory • Psychology (non-cognitive). Application of different theoretical lenses to the process. • Does wm create Gestalts during problem solving?
Working together on working memory • Cognitive. Formulation of information- processing models of the process. • Experimentally test process models. • How do models of different cognitive processes constrain each other?
Working together on working memory • Neuroscience. Anatomy and physiology of process. • Do connections between psychological models correspond to neural connectivity between brain regions that implement them?
Working together on working memory • Networks. Create ANNs to simulate the process and/or semantic networks to study how knowledge is represented in the process. • Implement ANN that rehearses verbal information. • Implement ANN that rotates mental images.
Working together on working memory • Evolution. Focus on the problem the process is designed to solve and how it originated. Implement evolutionary algorithms. • What adaptive roles are served by different wm functions?
Working together on working memory • Linguistics. What is the role of language in the process? How does the process interface with language? • What is the role of wm in language comprehension and production?
Working together on working memory • Artificial Intelligence. Design and run computer algorithms that will perform the process. • How is wm used to search for a target among the items of a list? • Explain human weakness in retrieving long lists. (List the 50 states of the US.)
Working together on working memory • Robotics. Design and test robots that will implement the process and use it in a real- world environment. • How is wm used as interface between perception and action? • Plot a path through a cluttered room.
Issues in cognitive science • Lack of a unified theory. • The nature of mental representation and computation still debated. • Classic information processing vs. connectionism.
Cognitive science and the real world • Cognitive science has a hard time accounting for processes that must interact with the complexity of the physical world. This is just one of the issues it must confront.
Issues in cognitive science • Emotions. There is no adequate account of emotions or of how they interact with cognition. • Consciousness. A fundamental mystery. No agreement on what it is or how to understand it. • Physical environments. Most cognitive science is done in simple controlled scenarios instead of complex real-word situations. • Social environments. Most cognitive processes are individualized instead of in social or ecological environments.
Issues in cognitive science • Individual and cultural differences. Greater consideration and study of these needed.
Evaluating cognitive science theories • Five considerations (Thagard, 2000): • Representational power. • Computational power. • Psychological plausibility. • Neurological plausibility. • Practical applicability.
Integration in cognitive science • Integration across levels of description. The need for theories and models that specify the implementation, algorithmic, and computational levels. • Integration across disciplines. Need for collaborative interdisciplinary work. • Integration across methodology. Need for synergistic use of multiple methods.
