Showing papers on "Cognitivism (psychology) published in 2014"

Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications

Abstract: A fully updated, systematic introduction to the theoretical and experimental foundations of higher mental processes. Avoiding technical jargon, John R. Anderson constructs a coherent picture of human cognition, relating neural functions to mental processes, perception to abstraction, representation to meaning, knowledge to skill, language to thought, and adult cognition to child development.

A genealogical map of the concept of habit

Abstract: The notion of information processing has dominated the study of the mind for over six decades. However, before the advent of cognitivism, one of the most prominent theoretical ideas was that of Habit. This is a concept with a rich and complex history, which is again starting to awaken interest, following recent embodied, enactive critiques of computationalist frameworks. We offer here a very brief history of the concept of habit in the form of a genealogical network-map. This serves to provide an overview of the richness of this notion and as a guide for further re-appraisal. We identify 77 thinkers and their influences, and group them into seven schools of thought. Two major trends can be distinguished. One is the associationist trend, starting with the work of Locke and Hume, developed by Hartley, Bain and Mill to be later absorbed into behaviourism through pioneering animal psychologists (Morgan and Thorndike). This tradition conceived of habits atomistically and as automatisms (a conception later debunked by cognitivism). Another historical trend we have called organicism inherits the legacy of Aristotle and develops along German idealism, French spiritualism, pragmatism, and phenomenology. It feeds into the work of continental psychologists in the early 20th century, influencing important figures such as Merleau-Ponty, Piaget, and Gibson. But it has not yet been taken up by mainstream cognitive neuroscience and psychology. Habits, in this tradition, are seen as ecological, self-organizing structures that relate to a web of predispositions and plastic dependencies both in the agent and in the environment. In addition, they are not conceptualized in opposition to rational, volitional processes, but as transversing a continuum from reflective to embodied intentionality. These are properties that make habit a particularly attractive idea for embodied, enactive perspectives, which can now re-evaluate it in light of dynamical systems theory and complexity research.

Emotions beyond brain and body

Abstract: The emerging consensus in the philosophy of cognition is that cognition is situated, i.e., dependent upon or co-constituted by the body, the environment, and/or the embodied interaction with it. Bu...

Introduction: What Is the "Second Generation?"

Abstract: 1. Preliminary MovesWhat does it mean to take a "second-generation" approach to the cognitive study of literature? Since this label can easily lend itself to misunderstandings, we want to make clear that "second-generation" refers to a specific strand in contemporary cognitive science, one foregrounding the embodiment of mental processes and their extension into the world through material artifacts and socio-cultural practices."First-generation" theories in the cognitive sciences conceive of the mind as based on abstract, propositional representations. Like a computer, the first-generation mind would process information as largely independent from specific brains, bodies, and sensory modalities. By contrast, "second-generation" approaches-a term coined by Lakoff and Johnson (Philosophy 77-78)-reject previous models of the mind as unduly limited to information processing, placing mental processes instead on a continuum with bioevolutionary phenomena and cultural practices. We treat "second-generation cognitive science" as interchangeable with another, more technical-sounding label used by cognitive scientists-that of "e-approaches" to cognition (Menary; Hutto). Here the e's stand for theories bringing to the fore the enactive, embedded, embodied, and extended qualities of the mind. To this list we may add "experiential" and "emotional," since this new paradigm gives experience and emotional responses a much more important role in cognition than first-wave, computational cognitivism. Bringing these e-approaches together under a common tag is at some level problematic, as Menary points out (459-461 ), because the theories and methodologies that it encompasses often prove distinct on closer examination. We will have to keep in mind this caveat as we explore the potential of these cognitive models for literary interpretation and theorization. The diversity of the secondgeneration framework is, in itself, a reminder that-again in Menary's words-"our cognitive lives are rich and varied and that simple homogenous explanations do not do justice to the complexity of cognitive phenomena" (461). At the same time, second-generation approaches also show some remarkable continuities: they converge on a view of the human mind as shaped by our evolutionary history, bodily make-up, and sensorimotor possibilities, and as arising out of close dialogue with other minds, in intersubjective interactions and cultural practices.These are the shared tenets of a second-generation account of cognition, and the complexity of the resulting framework is, as we will show, perfectly suited to match the complexity of literary (and, more generally, artistic) practices. Hence, this special issue attempts to map out the continuities among e-approaches and bring them to bear on longstanding narrative, literary, and aesthetic questions. In this process of interdisciplinary bridge-building, the essays touch on all the e's of e-approaches, exploring how perception and mental imagery are enacted through sensorimotor patterns (Kuzmicova; Muller), how creativity is extended through material artifacts (Bernini), how the reading process is shaped by embodied schemata and lived experiences (Caracciolo; Kukkonen; Troscianko), and how characters' fictional minds are in themselves embodied and embedded in socio-cultural contexts (Bernaerts). Though our main focus will be on literature, by including Muller's essay on the embodiment of film viewing we would like to underscore the connections between literary scholarship and the neighboring field of film studies, where cognitive approaches have gained explicit recognition, often by drawing on what we are calling "second-generation" cognitivism here.Contrasting first-generation and second-generation cognitive science does, of course, raise the question of whether a similar split exists, or can be identified, within cognitive approaches to literary narrative. Lakoff and Johnson themselves point out that their distinction "has nothing to do with the age of any individual or when one happened to enter the field The distinction is one of philosophical and methodological assumptions" (Philosophy 78). …

Out of our minds: a review of sociocultural cognition theory

Abstract: Theories of mind are implicitly embedded in educational research. The predominant theory of mind during the latter half of the twentieth century has focused primarily on the individual mind in isolation, context-free problem-solving and mental representations and reasoning, what we refer to as cognitivism. Over the last two decades, CS Education researchers have begun to incorporate recent research that extends, elaborates and sometimes challenges cognitivism. These theories, which we refer to collectively as sociocultural cognition theory, view minds as cultural products, biologically evolved to be extended by tools, social interaction and embodied interaction in the world. Learning, under this perspective, is viewed as tool-mediated participation in the ongoing practices of cultural communities. In this paper, we pursue three goals. First, we provide a summary of the key principles in sociocultural cognition theory, placing this theory within a historical context with respect to the cognitive theories t...

Theories and Research in Educational Technology and Distance Learning Instruction through Blackboard.

Abstract: Educational technology is a fast-growing and increasingly developed subject in education during the past 50 years. The focus of the development of its theories and research is oriented into the methods and effectiveness of its implementation. This presentation is reviewing various educational technology related theories, exploring and discussing up-to-date theoretical research and applications. The related theories not only cover those mainstream and influential ones, such Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism, and Multiple Intelligence, but also include those extended and popular theories: Anchored Instruction, Cognitive Flexibility, Diffusion of Innovations, Elaboration Theory, Experiential Learning Theory, Script Theory, Situated Cognition and Symbol Systems Theory. The application is mainly to discuss the related theories and research in educational technology and pedagogy of DL instruction through blackboard. The pedagogy of DL instruction includes the course designing, module delivery and objective-oriented assessment strategies.

The Architecture of Cognition: Rethinking Fodor and Pylyshyn's Systematicity Challenge

Abstract: In 1988, Jerry Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn challenged connectionist theorists to explain the systematicity of cognition. In a highly influential critical analysis of connectionism, they argued that connectionist explanations, at best, can only inform us about details of the neural substrate; explanations at the cognitive level must be classical insofar as adult human cognition is essentially systematic. More than twenty-five years later, however, conflicting explanations of cognition do not divide along classicist-connectionist lines, but oppose cognitivism (both classicist and connectionist) with a range of other methodologies, including distributed and embodied cognition, ecological psychology, enactivism, adaptive behavior, and biologically based neural network theory. This volume reassesses Fodor and Pylyshyn's "systematicity challenge" for a post-connectionist era. The contributors consider such questions as how post-connectionist approaches meet Fodor and Pylyshyn's conceptual challenges; whether there is empirical evidence for or against the systematicity of thought; and how the systematicity of human thought relates to behavior. The chapters offer a representative sample and an overview of the most important recent developments in the systematicity debate. ContributorsKen Aizawa, William Bechtel, Gideon Borensztajn, Paco Calvo, Anthony Chemero, Jonathan D. Cohen, Alicia Coram, Jeffrey L. Elman, Stefan L. Frank, Antoni Gomila, Seth A. Herd, Trent Kriete, Christian J. Lebiere, Lorena Lobo, Edouard Machery, Gary Marcus, Emma Martn, Fernando Martnez-Manrique, Brian P. McLaughlin, Randall C. O'Reilly, Alex A. Petrov, Steven Phillips, William Ramsey, Michael Silberstein, John Symons, David Travieso, William H. Wilson, Willem Zuidema

Embodied cognition and its applications: A brief review

Abstract: Embodied cognition is a research program comprising an array of methods from diverse theoretical fields (e.g., philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, etc.) held together by the key assumption that the body functions as a constituent of the mind rather than a passive perceiver and actor serving the mind. With a longstanding tradition in continental and pragmatic philosophy and a recent explosion in theoretical and empirical research in psychology and cognitive science, the embodied cognition research program is now ready to be formally translated into an applied approach for clinical, sport, education, social, media and health settings. This brief review sets the scene for this special edition by outlining philosophies and theory underpinning the embodied cognition research program and briefly reviewing accounts of embodied cognition that form themes running through the articles included in this special edition. Finally, we provide some examples of existing interventions, therapies and practices that utilise body–mind principles common to embodied cognition, though under other descriptive methodological titles. We suggest that embracing and integrating these interventions, therapies and practices under “applied embodied cognition” will encourage interdisciplinary discussion, thereby helping to move the field forward.

Social implications arise in embodied music cognition research which can counter musicological “individualism”

Abstract: The agenda in music research that is broadly recognized as embodied music cognition has arrived hand-in-hand with a social interpretation of music, focusing on the real-world basis of its performance, and fostering an empirical approach to musician movement regarding the communicative function and potential of those movements. However, embodied cognition emerged from traditional cognitivism, which produced a body of scientific explanation of music-theoretic concepts. The analytical object of this corpus is based on the particular imagined encounter of a listener responding to an idealised ‘work’. Although this problem of essentialism has been identified within mainstream musicology, the lingering effects may spill over into interdisciplinary, empirical research. This paper defines the situation according to its legacy of individualism, and offers an alternative sketch of musical activity as performance event, a model that highlights the social interaction processes at the heart of musical behaviour. I describe some recent empirical work based on interaction-oriented approaches, arguing that this particular focus – on the social interaction process itself – creates a distinctive and promising agenda for further research into embodied music cognition.

Translating theory into practice: integrating the affective and cognitive learning dimensions for effective instruction in engineering education

Abstract: Learning in the cognitive domain is highly emphasised and has been widely investigated in engineering education. Lesser emphasis is placed on the affective dimension although the role of affects has been supported by research. The lack of understanding on learning theories and how they may be translated into classroom application of teaching and learning is one factor that contributes to this situation. This paper proposes a working framework for integrating the affective dimension of learning into engineering education that is expected to promote better learning within the cognitive domain. Four major learning theories namely behaviourism, cognitivism, socio-culturalism, and constructivism were analysed and how affects are postulated to influence cognition are identified. The affective domain constructs identified to be important are self-efficacy, attitude and locus of control. Based on the results of the analysis, a framework that integrates methodologies for achieving learning in the cognitive domain ...

Situating distributed cognition

Abstract: We historically and conceptually situate distributed cognition by drawing attention to important similarities in assumptions and methods with those of American “functional psychology” as it emerged...

Situated Cognition: A Field Guide to Some Open Conceptual and Ontological Issues

Abstract: This paper provides an overview over the debate about so-called “situated approaches to cognition” that depart from the intracranialism associated with traditional cognitivism insofar as they stress the importance of body, world, and interaction for cognitive processing. It sketches the outlines of an overarching framework that reveals the differences, commonalities, and interdependencies between the various claims and positions of second-generation cognitive science, and identifies a number of apparently unresolved conceptual and ontological issues.

The Ecology of Interactive Learning Environments: Situating Traditional Theory.

Abstract: In educational discourse on human learning (i.e. the result of experience) and development (i.e. the result of maturation), there are three fundamental theoretical frameworks, – behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism, each of which have been applied, with varying degrees of success, in online environments. An ecological framework of human learning and development in interactive learning environments is proposed. Such an inclusive paradigm organizes the fundamental theoretical assumptions of behaviourism (i.e. automated learning), cognitivism (i.e. recall, understanding, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, creativity, problem solving) and constructivism (i.e. private and shared meaning). Based on review of the literature, behaviourism is best conceptualized as a learning theory; constructivist theoretical assumptions are best applied to cognitive development including private online experience (cognitive constructivism) and shared online experience (social constructivism). Cognitivism is a particularly ...

La pericia perceptivo-motriz y la cognición en el deporte: del enfoque ecológico y dinámico a la enacción

Abstract: In this paper three alternative theoretical streams to cognitivism, with particular emphasis on enactivism are discussed in order to explain the sport skill acquisition process and human control of movement. In the first part, main concepts of ecological psychology are outlined, like movement regulation, direct perception or mutual interdependence between perception and action. Afterwards, using dynamical model as background, some concepts of motor skill coordination are explained (i.e., constraints or movement emergency). The next section will be focused on enactive approach as a conceptual extension from cognitive science that transcends the other paradigms. From this orientation, it calls for a mind-body fusion of the athlete, which is inseparable to the environment and opposing the prevailing dualism and reductionism. Finally, some guidelines and applications enactive research that are currently being developed are presented.

Applying the learning theories to medical education: A commentary

Abstract: Medical education of today continues to evolve to meet the challenges of the stakeholders. Medical professionals today are expected to play multiple roles besides being experts. Thus, the curriculum has to be developed in a manner that facilitates learners to achieve the intended goal of becoming a medical professional with multiple competencies. The understanding of learning theories will be helpful in designing and delivering the curriculum to meet the demands of producing a medical professional who would meet the CanMEDS model. This commentary explores and reflects on the learning theories of behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism as they have evolved over time and the application of these learning theories in medical education, particularly in the context of medical education in Malaysia. The authors are convinced that these three theories are not mutually exclusive but should be operationalized contextually and throughout the different stages of learning in the MBBS curriculum. Understanding these theories and their application will enhance the learning experience of students.

Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Psychology

Abstract: Part I. Philosophy of Science: 1. Logical positivism and Popper's falsificationism 2. Kuhn and scientific revolutions 3. Lakatos and Feyerabend: research programmes and anarchism Part II. Historical Development of the Philosophy of Mind: 4. Descartes and the mind-body problem 5. Locke, Berkeley, and empiricism 6. Hume, Kant, and Enlightenment 7. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche Part III. Psychology: 8. Psychophysics and physiological psychology 9. Evolution and psychology 10. Freud and psychoanalysis 11. Wundt and the birth of experimental psychology 12. Titchener, introspection, and positivism 13. Gestalt psychology 14. William James and the stream of consciousness 15. Dewey and functionalism 16. Behaviourism 17. Cognitive psychology 18. Modularity, neuroscience, and embodied cognition.

A Future Agenda for Research on Language and Culture

Abstract: The purpose of this chapter is to assess the future of Cultural Linguistics (see Chapter 32 this volume) as a tool for exploring a variety of linguistic phenomena along with their intra-group and inter-group cultural instantiations.1 As a subfield of linguistics, Cultural Linguistics has the potential to bring forth a model that successfully melds together complementary approaches, e.g., viewing language as ‘a complex adaptive system’ and bringing to bear upon it concepts drawn from cognitive science such as ‘distributed cognition’ and ‘multi-agent dynamic systems theory’. This will allow us to move away from essentialist models of the entity we call ‘language’ (Frank, 2008) and hence to adopt and build on theoretical approaches, e.g. ‘enactive cognitivism’, already being exploited by researchers working in related areas more characteristic of the cognitive sciences, that is, by those who no longer subscribe to the tenets of ‘classic cognitivism’. The paradigm emerging from research in Cultural Linguistics draws on a highly nuanced multidisciplinarily informed approach that allows for a greater appreciation for individual choices and the motivations behind these choices as they coalesce into and around ‘cultural conceptualizations’ (Sharifian, 2003, 2009a; see also Chapter 32 this volume).

David Hume, Literary Cognitivism, and the Truth of the Novel

Abstract: This essay discusses David Hume’s dismissal of the cognitive value of novels and suggests that his attitude has both aesthetic and epistemological roots. Hume’s neoclassicism imposes formal demands on literature that compromise the evidential value of fictional narratives, and while novelists neglected such demands, Hume believed that even the most realistic narrative would fail at capturing the complex dynamics governing social life. Hume’s views bring into relief a theoretical tension between empiricism and literary cognitivism, a tension that, in turn, sheds light on the work of novelists such as Henry Fielding, whose theory of fiction was informed by the attempt to solve it.

Language Awareness: From Embarras de Richesses to Terminological Confusion

Abstract: The first part of the chapter contains a discussion of the origins of the concept of language awareness looking at its role in first, second and foreign language teaching. It also examines both synchronically and diachronically issues investigated within the framework of language awareness research tracing them back to the clash of audiolingualism and cognitivism at the turn of the 1960s as well as finding synergies with those tackled under other guises in the present day. The aim of the analysis is to show tendencies to subsume most of the SLA/FLT issues under the umbrella term of language awareness as well as to critically assess the added value of reconceptualising formerly researched problems within the LA approach. In the second part of the text approaches to consciousness and awareness in disciplines other than applied linguistics are presented, i.e. the evolutionary approach to the development of acquired concepts in neurobiology, the phenomenological approach to consciousness in philosophy, the dialogic approach in sociology, the reflective approach in educational sciences as well as approaches based on Bataille’s concept of transgression traced back to early Hasidic teaching and on Kristeva’s concept of abjection in cultural anthropology. In the final section implications of the analysis for first, second and foreign language teacher education are discussed.

The Roots of Romantic Cognitivism: (Post) Kantian Intellectual Intuition and the Unity of Creation and Discovery

Abstract: During the romantic period, various authors expressed the belief that through creativity, we can directly access truth. To modern ears, this claim sounds strange. In this paper, I attempt to render the position comprehensible, and to show how it came to seem plausible to the romantics. I begin by offering examples of this position as found in the work of the British romantics. Each thinks that the deepest knowledge can only be gained by an act of creativity. I suggest the belief should be seen in the context of the post-Kantian embrace of “intellectual intuition.” Unresolved tensions in Kant's philosophy had encouraged a belief that creation and discovery were not distinct categories. The post-Kantians held that in certain cases of knowledge (for Fichte, knowledge of self and world; for Schelling, knowledge of the Absolute) the distinction between discovering a truth and creating that truth dissolves. In this context, the cognitive role assigned to acts of creativity is not without its own appeal.

Literature and Philosophy: Intersection and Boundaries

Abstract: This paper is inspired by the manuscript of Philip Kitcher’s forthcoming book Deaths in Venice: The Cases of Gustav von Aschenbach, in which he offers a brilliant, philosophically inspired reading of Thomas Mann’s novel, as well as his views on the relationship between literature and philosophy. One of Kitcher’s claims, which is my starting point, is that philosophy can be done not only by philosophers but also within some art forms, such as literature and music. Within the literary text, Kitcher claims, philosophy lies in the showing and the text can influence the way readers think and perceive the world. Due to this claim, I see Kitcher as pertaining to the group of literary cognitivists. He offers some powerful arguments in support of the cognitive value of literature, although his approach is substantially different from the arguments usually put forward in defence of literary cognitivism. In this paper, my aim is twofold: firstly, I want to analyse the relationship between philosophy and literature with the aim of showing that despite some overlap between the two disciplines, we have to keep them separate. Secondly, I want to explore what ramifications this has for literary cognitivism.

Religious perception and the education of attention

Abstract: As a long-time advocate of the ecological approach to perception, and an implacable opponent of cognitivism in all its forms (Ingold, 2000), I am much in sympathy with the argument of this paper. I...

Distributed Cognition in Scientific Contexts

Abstract: Even though it has been argued that scientific cognition is distributed, there is no consensus on the exact nature of distributed cognition. This paper aims to characterize distributed cognition as appropriate for philosophical studies of science. I first classify competing characterizations into three types: the property approach, the task approach, and the system approach. It turns out that the property approach and the task approach are subject to criticism. I then argue that the most preferable way to understand distributed cognition in science is provided by the system approach that takes a distributed-cognitive system as the unit of analysis. I clarify this position by considering possible objections and replies.

El cognitivismo y la negación de la mente: influencia del dualismo cartesiano

Abstract: Cognitivism, a prevailing standpoint in psychology and cognitive sciences in general, constitutes a paradigm for the understanding of the mind, which apparently, is compatible with science’s materialistic postulates. That way, it would seem that approach would be the first fully scientific attempt, conceived to research and develop explanations regarding the mind. However, when some core elements of cognitivism are examined, it can be seen that, within it, this perspective contains a reductionist maneuver that leaves out some main components of the psyche, somewhat continuing the historical Cartesian tradition of denying the mind as a physical and natural phenomenon. In this work, the core postulates of cognitivism are reviewed, and analyzed under the light of Rene Descartes’ substance dualism, in order to reveal how much of this philosophical perspective is still present in the new sciences of the mind, restricting our understanding of the cognitive processes.

Thought Experiments, Hypotheses, and Cognitive Dimension of Literary Fiction

Abstract: Some authors defend literary cognitivism – the view that literary fiction is cognitively valuable – by drawing an analogy between cognitive values of thought experiments and literary fiction. In this paper my aim is to analyse the reasons for drawing this analogy and to see how far the analogy can be stretched. In the second part, I turn to the claim put forward by literary anti-cognitivists according to which literature can at best be the source of hypotheses, not of knowledge. I challenge this claim by showing that hypotheses can have valuable cognitive benefits on their own, thus hoping to restore cognitive benefits readers get from literature.

Collaborative cognition: Co-creating children's artwork in an educational context

Abstract: Based on a wider research project which critiqued the centricity of cognitivism in research investigating children’s drawings this article explores the relationship between social interaction and m...

Evidential Constraints on Singular Thought

Abstract: In this article, I argue that in typical cases of singular thought, a thinker stands in an evidential relation to the object of thought suitable for providing knowledge of the object's existence. Furthermore, a thinker may generate representations that purport to refer to particular objects in response to appropriate, though defeasible, evidence of the existence of such an object. I motivate these constraints by considering a number of examples introduced by Robin Jeshion in support of a view she calls ‘cognitivism’ (Jeshion, 2010b). Although I agree with Jeshion that acquaintance is not required for all cases of singular thought, I argue that her account doesn't go far enough in rejecting semantic instrumentalism, the view that we can generate singular thoughts arbitrarily, by manipulating the mechanisms of direct reference.

Peirce, Moral Cognitivism, and the Development of Character

Abstract: Proponents of moral cognitivism have recently looked to Peirce in order to supplement their position. That work focuses on what Peirce has to say about truth and inquiry and how these notions can help us better understand our beliefs and the verification thereof. This paper argues that the view of the moral cognitivist is incomplete if it is not accompanied by an explanation of how beliefs turn into actions. Such an explanation requires a description of how a resolution becomes a determination. That description necessarily includes an account of feeling (and thus Esthetics), since feelings are the means by which we navigate our environment. Ultimately, in order to ensure that our behavior is of the correct sort in the long run, we should be concerned with getting our feelings right so that we can develop the right habits and thus the right kind of moral character.