Last Modified: 2/07/00
- Questions:
- What is cognitive science?
- Where did it originate?
- Who were some of its earliest philosophers?
- What other types of people are involved in this particular field?
- Definition
- Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence, embracing philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology.
- It is a relatively new field at the forefront of the information technology explosion.
- Origins
- It began in the mid-1950s when researchers in several fields began to develop theories of the mind based on representations and procedures but attempts to understand the mind go back over 2000 years.
- Earliest Philosophers
- Confucius, Aristotle, and Plato were three of the earliest philosophers who attempted to explain the nature of human knowledge.
- Modern Cognitive Scientists
- Starting after World War II researchers from a variety of disciplines began to explore areas which later came to be called cognitive science. An interest in the experimental study of cognition itself differentiates these workers from philosophy. A common interest in mechanics and understanding of cognition unites their host disciplines.
- From mathematics and computer science:
- John von Neumann
- Mathematician, invented Eniac: first computer
- Alan Turing
- Mathematician who developed the first operational computer, named Robinson, to break codes used by the German government in WWII.
- Developed a theory comparing the human brain to a machine
- Created the Turing test to determine if a machine could really think.
- Claude Shannon
- Pioneer of communication theory
- Published a seminal paper in 1948
- Information theory
- Any piece of information can be sent any distance reliably (trick is to put in enough repetition)
- Douglas Hofstadter
- Pulitzer Prize1980.
- Main focus of research is on emergent models of high-level perception, analogical thought, and creativity.
- Terry Winograd
- Focus is on developing the theoretical background and conceptual models for designing human-computer interaction.
- Founder of Action Technologies, a developer of workflow software.
- Norbert Wiener
- Founder of Cybernetics
- Purposeful Machines
- Servomechanisms
- From artificial intelligence
- John McCarthy
- A pioneer in artificial intelligence.
- Invented LISP, the preeminent AI programming language.
- Roger Schank
- Artifical Intellegence
- Deals with the value of learning from experts, developing skills rather than perfecting routines, and applying the benefits of "just-in-time" training.
- Marvin Minsky
- Made many contributions to AI, cognitive psychology, mathematics, computational linguistics, robotics, and optics.
- Built the SNARC, the first neural network simulator.
- Other inventions include mechanical hands and other robotic devices,the confocal scanning microscope, the"Muse" synthesizer for musical variations (with E. Fredkin), and the first LOGO "turtle" (with S. Papert).
- Seymour Papert
- Mathematician and one of the early pioneers of Artificial Intelligence.
- Founded the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT with Marvin Minsky
- From psychology
- Herbert Simon
- Nobel Prize in Economics in 1978 for his work in bounded rationality.
- One of the founding fathers of modern research in artificial intelligence.
- Allen Newell
- Simon's late long-time collaborator
- SOAR
- Donald Norman
- Vice President of Apple Computer's Advanced Technological Group.
- A recognized authority on human interface and design. Wrote The Design of Everyday Things.
- One of the founders of the Cognitive Science Society.
- Karl Lashley
- "Brain mechanisms and intelligence."
- A prominent physiological psychologist.
- One of the forefathers of contemporary cognitive neuro-psychology.
- His goal was to determine where in the brain memories are stored.
- He theorized that physical memory traces (engrams) must be made in the brain when learning occurs.
- From linguistics
- Noam Chomsky
- Professor of linguistics at MIT.
- Changed the focus of language from a concern with methods of classification to a search for explanatory principles.
- From philosophy
- Daniel Dennett
- Developed the method of "heterophenomenology", a procedure in which a person is asked about their experiences, and these accounts are passed through a third party who collates and organizes them.
- His major work, Consciousness Explained, posits a theory that consciousness is an abstraction built from a linear narrative of one's life, based on a functionalist view of cognitive science
- Hubert Dreyfus
- Phenomenology of Perception
- What Computers Can't Do
- What Computers Still Can't Do
- John Searle
- Works mostly in the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind.
- Mind Language and Society
- The Chinese Room thought experiment
- From biology
- David Marr
- Expert on the human visual system
- Extensive research in the area of computational vision
- Valentino Braitenberg
- Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology
- Describes simple hypothetical vehicles, with simple sensors and actuators, and describes how they behave.
The Prehistory of Cognitive Science--index, basic, short, links, graphics
Information Age--index, basic, medium, links, graphics
Cognitive Science Dictionary--index, basic, short, links
Celebrities in Cognitive Science--index, basic, medium, links
Claude Shannon--index, basic, medium, links, graphics
John von Neumann--index, interm., short, links, graphics
Computers: From the Past to the Present--tutorial, interm., medium, links, graphics
David Marr--tutorial, basic, short, links
Pantheon of Famous Philosophers--interactive, adv., long, links, graphics
The History of the Invention of the Transistor--text, intermediate, long, graphics, links, search