| Biological level | neurons and the like |
 | |
| Cognitive level | mental representations and processes |
| |
| Behavioural level | performance of task |
One of the greatest intellectual challenges ...
... attacked from a vast array of different directions.
Cognitive Science seeks a scientific understanding of the mind.
We cannot see our minds working, so we must make inferences from indirect evidence.
An apparently infinite variety of things - but at least:
We try to explain the actions of others and ourselves all the time ...
... by referring to their intentions, beliefs, emotions etc.
Thus social cognition requires us to try to understand the "mental states" of others.
But ...
Such accounts can be inconsistent, unreliable, specific and not predictive;
they do not deal with many essential cognitive processes - such as how we see, how we speak, how we read.
In short, it is easy to mislead ourselves about how our minds work.
A search for principles which can provide general, reliable accounts with predictive power.
A basis for practical applications:
need a language to give a common way of conceptualising phenomena;
a framework in which to develop theories (we cannot hope to explain everything at once);
methods for studying mental phenomena.
Hard!
Metaphors may help:
Mental representations and their nature are central to much theorising - yet even their existence is hotly debated!
Mental processes are taken to act on representations.
We have to restrict the scope of our ideas. One possible causal framework:
| Biological level | neurons and the like |
| |
| Cognitive level | mental representations and processes |
| |
| Behavioural level | performance of task |
introspection
"think-aloud" studies
questionnaires and interviews
experiments
computer simulations
The attempt to understand, model, make predictions about and hence explain human behaviour.
The analysis of particular cognitive abilities, e.g. Problem solving, language.
An interdisciplinary approach.
Maintained by:
David Young
With thanks to Yvonne Rogers