COGNITIVE SCIENCE: It's History and the People Involved

Kaneshia L. Agnew

Last Modified: 2/10/99

  • 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?

HISTORY

Cognitive Science

  • 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 attemtpted 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 yhe 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
      • 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
        • Mathemetician 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 neuropsychology.
        • 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.
        • The Rediscovery of the Mind
        • 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.

PEOPLE

Authors, Philosophers, and Psychologists

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