Cognition in the Wild

Cognition in the Wild PDF Author: Edwin Hutchins
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262082310
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
After comparing modern Western navigation with the method practiced in Micronesia, Hutchins explores the computational and cognitive properties of systems that involve multiple individuals. He then turns to an analysis of learning or change in the organization of cognitive systems at several scales.

Cognition in the Wild

Cognition in the Wild PDF Author: Edwin Hutchins
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262082310
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
After comparing modern Western navigation with the method practiced in Micronesia, Hutchins explores the computational and cognitive properties of systems that involve multiple individuals. He then turns to an analysis of learning or change in the organization of cognitive systems at several scales.

Grounds for Cognition

Grounds for Cognition PDF Author: Radu J. Bogdan
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1317780507
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Q: Why do organisms need cognition? A: To get information about their environments. Q: Why such information? A: Because organisms need to guide their behaviors to goals. Q: Why guidance? A: Because it leads to goal satisfaction. Q: Why goals? Cognition is a naturally selected response by genetic programs to the evolutionary pressure of guiding behaviors to goals. Organisms are material systems that maintain and replicate themselves by engaging their world in goal-directed ways. This is how guidance of behavior to goal grounds and explains cognition and the main forms in which it manages information. Guidance to goal also makes a difference to the understanding of human cognition. Simpler forms of cognition evolve to handle fixed informational transactions with the world, whereas human cognition evolves the abilities to script flexible goal situations that fit specific contexts of behavior. This teleoevolutionary approach has important implications for cognitive science, two of which are programmatic. One is that information that guides to goal is not exclusively cognitive; guidance is also affected by ecological facts and regularities as well as by design assumptions about them. The other implication is that the functional analyses dominant in cognitive science and philosophy of mind are incomplete and weak. They are incomplete in that they focus only on the explicitly encoded cognitive information and its behavioral consequences, thus ignoring the larger guidance arrangements; and weak because causal and functional relations implement but underdetermine goal-directed and goal-guided procesess. A work dealing expressly with the foundations of cognitive science, this book addresses basic but seldom-asked questions about the evolutionary rationale of cognition and the way this rationale has shaped the major types of cognition. It also provides a teleological answer to these basic questions in terms of goal directedness and particularly guidance of behavior to goal. In so doing, the work defends the scientific respectability and the explanatory necessity of teleology by showing that goal directedness characterizes the work of genetic programs.

Kant's Empirical Psychology

Kant's Empirical Psychology PDF Author: Patrick R. Frierson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107032652
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
This is the first English-language book to examine Kant's empirical psychology, applying it throughout Kant's philosophy and to contemporary philosophical issues.

Consciousness and Cognition

Consciousness and Cognition PDF Author: Henri Cohen
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080471196
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
What were the circumstances that led to the development of our cognitive abilities from a primitive hominid to an essentially modern human? The answer to this question is of profound importance to understanding our present nature. Since the steep path of our cognitive development is the attribute that most distinguishes humans from other mammals, this is also a quest to determine human origins. This collection of outstanding scientific problems and the revelation of the many ways they can be addressed indicates the scope of the field to be explored and reveals some avenues along which research is advancing. Distinguished scientists and researchers who have advanced the discussion of the mind and brain contribute state-of-the-art presentations of their field of expertise. Chapters offer speculative and provocative views on topics such as body, culture, evolution, feelings, genetics, history, humor, knowledge, language, machines, neuroanatomy, pathology, and perception. This book will appeal to researchers and students in cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy. - Includes a contribution by Noam Chomsky, one of the most cited authors of our time

Grounds for Cognition

Grounds for Cognition PDF Author: Radu J. Bogdan
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1317780493
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
Q: Why do organisms need cognition? A: To get information about their environments. Q: Why such information? A: Because organisms need to guide their behaviors to goals. Q: Why guidance? A: Because it leads to goal satisfaction. Q: Why goals? Cognition is a naturally selected response by genetic programs to the evolutionary pressure of guiding behaviors to goals. Organisms are material systems that maintain and replicate themselves by engaging their world in goal-directed ways. This is how guidance of behavior to goal grounds and explains cognition and the main forms in which it manages information. Guidance to goal also makes a difference to the understanding of human cognition. Simpler forms of cognition evolve to handle fixed informational transactions with the world, whereas human cognition evolves the abilities to script flexible goal situations that fit specific contexts of behavior. This teleoevolutionary approach has important implications for cognitive science, two of which are programmatic. One is that information that guides to goal is not exclusively cognitive; guidance is also affected by ecological facts and regularities as well as by design assumptions about them. The other implication is that the functional analyses dominant in cognitive science and philosophy of mind are incomplete and weak. They are incomplete in that they focus only on the explicitly encoded cognitive information and its behavioral consequences, thus ignoring the larger guidance arrangements; and weak because causal and functional relations implement but underdetermine goal-directed and goal-guided procesess. A work dealing expressly with the foundations of cognitive science, this book addresses basic but seldom-asked questions about the evolutionary rationale of cognition and the way this rationale has shaped the major types of cognition. It also provides a teleological answer to these basic questions in terms of goal directedness and particularly guidance of behavior to goal. In so doing, the work defends the scientific respectability and the explanatory necessity of teleology by showing that goal directedness characterizes the work of genetic programs.

Unified Theories of Cognition

Unified Theories of Cognition PDF Author: Allen Newell
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674921016
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Book Description
Newell introduces Soar, an architecture for general cognition. A pioneer system in AI, Soar is the first problem-solver to create its own subgoals and learn continuously from its own experience. Its ability to operate within the real-time constraints of intelligent behavior illustrates important characteristics of human cognition.

Unthought

Unthought PDF Author: N. Katherine Hayles
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022644788X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
N. Katherine Hayles is known for breaking new ground at the intersection of the sciences and the humanities. In Unthought, she once again bridges disciplines by revealing how we think without thinking—how we use cognitive processes that are inaccessible to consciousness yet necessary for it to function. Marshalling fresh insights from neuroscience, cognitive science, cognitive biology, and literature, Hayles expands our understanding of cognition and demonstrates that it involves more than consciousness alone. Cognition, as Hayles defines it, is applicable not only to nonconscious processes in humans but to all forms of life, including unicellular organisms and plants. Startlingly, she also shows that cognition operates in the sophisticated information-processing abilities of technical systems: when humans and cognitive technical systems interact, they form “cognitive assemblages”—as found in urban traffic control, drones, and the trading algorithms of finance capital, for instance—and these assemblages are transforming life on earth. The result is what Hayles calls a “planetary cognitive ecology,” which includes both human and technical actors and which poses urgent questions to humanists and social scientists alike. At a time when scientific and technological advances are bringing far-reaching aspects of cognition into the public eye, Unthought reflects deeply on our contemporary situation and moves us toward a more sustainable and flourishing environment for all beings.

Discovering the Brain

Discovering the Brain PDF Author: National Academy of Sciences
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309045290
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
The brain ... There is no other part of the human anatomy that is so intriguing. How does it develop and function and why does it sometimes, tragically, degenerate? The answers are complex. In Discovering the Brain, science writer Sandra Ackerman cuts through the complexity to bring this vital topic to the public. The 1990s were declared the "Decade of the Brain" by former President Bush, and the neuroscience community responded with a host of new investigations and conferences. Discovering the Brain is based on the Institute of Medicine conference, Decade of the Brain: Frontiers in Neuroscience and Brain Research. Discovering the Brain is a "field guide" to the brainâ€"an easy-to-read discussion of the brain's physical structure and where functions such as language and music appreciation lie. Ackerman examines: How electrical and chemical signals are conveyed in the brain. The mechanisms by which we see, hear, think, and pay attentionâ€"and how a "gut feeling" actually originates in the brain. Learning and memory retention, including parallels to computer memory and what they might tell us about our own mental capacity. Development of the brain throughout the life span, with a look at the aging brain. Ackerman provides an enlightening chapter on the connection between the brain's physical condition and various mental disorders and notes what progress can realistically be made toward the prevention and treatment of stroke and other ailments. Finally, she explores the potential for major advances during the "Decade of the Brain," with a look at medical imaging techniquesâ€"what various technologies can and cannot tell usâ€"and how the public and private sectors can contribute to continued advances in neuroscience. This highly readable volume will provide the public and policymakersâ€"and many scientists as wellâ€"with a helpful guide to understanding the many discoveries that are sure to be announced throughout the "Decade of the Brain."

The Cognitive Animal

The Cognitive Animal PDF Author: Marc Bekoff
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262523226
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 508

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Book Description
The fifty-seven original essays in this book provide a comprehensive overview of the interdisciplinary field of animal cognition. The contributors include cognitive ethologists, behavioral ecologists, experimental and developmental psychologists, behaviorists, philosophers, neuroscientists, computer scientists and modelers, field biologists, and others. The diversity of approaches is both philosophical and methodological, with contributors demonstrating various degrees of acceptance or disdain for such terms as "consciousness" and varying degrees of concern for laboratory experimentation versus naturalistic research. In addition to primates, particularly the nonhuman great apes, the animals discussed include antelopes, bees, dogs, dolphins, earthworms, fish, hyenas, parrots, prairie dogs, rats, ravens, sea lions, snakes, spiders, and squirrels. The topics include (but are not limited to) definitions of cognition, the role of anecdotes in the study of animal cognition, anthropomorphism, attention, perception, learning, memory, thinking, consciousness, intentionality, communication, planning, play, aggression, dominance, predation, recognition, assessment of self and others, social knowledge, empathy, conflict resolution, reproduction, parent-young interactions and caregiving, ecology, evolution, kin selection, and neuroethology.

Neurocognitive Mechanisms

Neurocognitive Mechanisms PDF Author: Gualtiero Piccinini
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198866283
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
Gualtiero Piccinini presents a systematic and rigorous philosophical defence of the computational theory of cognition. His view posits that cognition involves neural computation within multilevel neurocognitive mechanisms, and includes novel ideas about ontology, functions, neural representation, neural computation, and consciousness.