What can be common in psychology, linguistics, the doctrine of artificial intelligence and the theory of knowledge? All of the above successfully combines cognitive science. This interdisciplinary field is engaged in the study of cognitive and thought processes that occur in the brain of man and animal.
History of Cognitive Science
The well-known great philosophers Plato and Aristotle were still interested in the nature of human consciousness. Many works and assumptions of the times of Ancient Greece have been put forward on this subject. In the XVII century, the French mathematician, philosopher and physicist Rene Descartes somewhat popularized the idea of this science, saying that the body and mind of living beings are independent objects.
The author of the concept of “cognitive science” in 1973 was Christopher Longue-Higgins, who studied artificial intelligence. A few years later, the journal Cognitive Science was created. After this event, cognitive science has become an independent direction.
Consider the names of the most famous researchers in this area:
- John Searle created a thought experiment called the Chinese Room.
- Physiologist James McClelland, investigating the work of the brain.
- Stephen Pinker is a specialist in experimental psychology.
- George Lakoff is a linguistic researcher.
Modern cognitive science
Scientists are trying in practice to prove the connection of brain physiology with mental phenomena using visualization. If in past centuries the human consciousness was not taken into account, then today its study is included in the main tasks of cognitive science.
The development of this doctrine as a whole depends on technological progress. For example, tomography, the invention of which significantly influenced the continued existence and development of cognitive science. Scanning allowed us to see the brain from the inside, therefore, to study the processes of its functioning. Scientists argue that over time, technological progress will help humanity uncover the secrets of our mind. For example, the interaction of the brain and the central nervous system.
Subject, tasks and methods of cognitive science research
Everything related to the human mind, until the XX century, were just assumptions, since at that time it was impossible to verify theories in practice. Views on the functioning of the brain are formed on the basis of borrowed information about artificial intelligence, psychological experiments and the physiology of the higher central nervous system.
Symbolism and connectionism are classic calculation methods that model cognitive systems. The first method is based on the idea of the similarity of human thinking with a computer that has a central processor and processes data streams. Connectionism is completely contrary to symbolism, explaining this by the incompatibility of neuroscience data on brain activity. Human thinking can be stimulated by artificial neural networks that process data at the same time.
Cognitive science as an umbrella term was considered by E. S. Kubryakova in 2004, since the doctrine includes a number of interacting disciplines:
- Philosophy of consciousness.
- Experimental and cognitive psychology.
- Artificial Intelligence.
- Cognitive linguistics, ethology and anthropology.
- Neurophysiology, neurology and neurobiology.
- Material cognitive science.
- Neuro-linguistics and psycholinguistics.
Philosophy of consciousness as one of the components of cognitive science
The subject of this discipline is the features of consciousness and its relationship with physical reality (mental properties of the mind). The American philosopher of our time, Richard Rorty, called this teaching the only useful one in philosophy.
There are a considerable number of problems arising from attempts to answer the question of what consciousness is. One of the most important topics that cognitive science studies through this discipline is human will. Materialists believe that consciousness is part of physical reality, and the world around us is completely subject to the laws of physics. Thus, it can be argued that human behavior is subject to science. Therefore, we are not free.
Other philosophers, including I. Kant, are convinced that reality cannot be completely subject to physics. Proponents of this view consider genuine freedom to be the result of the fulfillment of the duty required by reason.
Cognitive psychology
This discipline studies the cognitive processes of man. The psychological foundations of cognitive science contain information about memory, feelings, attention, imagination, logical thinking, decision-making abilities. The results of modern studies of information conversion are based on the similarity of computing devices and cognitive human processes. The most common concept is the psyche like a device with the ability to convert signals. The internal cognitive patterns and activity of the body during cognition play a major role in this teaching. These two systems have the ability to input, store and display information.
Cognitive ethology
Discipline studies the rational activity and mind of animals. Speaking of ethology, it is impossible not to recall Charles Darwin. The English naturalist argued not only about the presence of emotions, intelligence, the ability to imitate and learn from animals, but also about reasoning. The founder of ethology in 1973 was the Nobel laureate in physiology Konrad Lorenz. The scientist discovered in animals an amazing ability at that time to transmit information to each other, obtained during the training.
Stephen Wise, a professor at Harvard University, in his work with the characteristic name “Break the Cell” agreed that there is only one creature living on planet Earth that can create music, build rockets and solve math problems. It is, of course, a reasonable man. But not only people know how to be offended, yearn, think and so on. That is, “our smaller brothers” have communication skills, morality, norms of behavior and aesthetic feelings. Ukrainian academic neuroscience O. Krishtal noted that today behaviorism has been overcome and animals are no longer considered as “living robots”.
Cognitive graphics
Learning combines the techniques and methods of colorful presentation of a problem in order to get a hint about its solution or solution in its entirety. Cognitive science uses these methods in artificial intelligence systems that can turn a textual description of tasks into a figurative representation.
D. A. Pospelov formed three primary tasks of computer graphics:
- the formation of knowledge models that could represent objects that characterize logical and figurative thinking;
- visualization of information that cannot yet be characterized by words;
- search for ways to move from figurative pictures to the formulation of processes hidden behind their dynamics.