Cognitive Science: An Introduction

Cognitive Science: An Introduction

This book is intended to be an introductory undergraduate text for the field of cognitive science, the interdiscipline that endeavors to understand cognition at a computational level from a variety of methodological viewpoints.

THIS BOOK IS A WORK IN PROGRESS AND IS STILL INCOMPLETE

About This Book
 * /Approach/
 * /Study Questions/
 * /Style Guide/

What Cognitive Science Is
 * /What is Science?/
 * /A Brief History/
 * /Cognitive Science Defined/
 * /Other Cognitive Levels of Explanation/

Approaches to Cognitive Science
 * /Computational theory of mind/
 * /Situated Cognition/
 * /Embodied cognition/

Methods
 * /Artificial Intelligence Methods/
 * /Psychology Methods/
 * /Statistics/
 * /Philosophy Methods/
 * /Linguistics Methods/
 * /Neuroscience Methods/
 * /Anthropology Methods/
 * /Serious Games and Crowdsourcing Methods/

The Architecture of the Mind
 * /What is an Architecture?/
 * /Modularity vs. General Purpose Functioning/
 * /Emotion/
 * /Non-Emotion Feelings/
 * /Metaphor and Analogy/
 * /Cognitive Architectures Implemented As Software/
 * /Brain Architecture and Processing/

The Evolution of Intelligence
 * /What is evolution?/
 * /Kinds of Intelligences/
 * /Methodology: How Can We Understand the Evolution of Intelligence?/
 * /A Brief History of Human Evolution/
 * /Explanations For How Humans Got So Smart/
 * /Evolutionary Psychology/

Perception
 * /Perception's Role in Cognition/
 * /Vision/
 * /Audition/
 * /Haptics/
 * /Olfaction/
 * /Gustation/
 * /Vestibular Systems/
 * /Proprioception/
 * /Interoception/
 * /Senses In Non-human Animals and Robots/
 * /What the Senses Have in Common/
 * /Synesthesia/

Specific Mental Processes
 * /What Consciousness Is/
 * /Psychology of Time/
 * /Psychology of Pain/
 * /Philosophical Issues of Pain/
 * /Dreaming/
 * /Control of the Body/
 * /Gut brain/

Memory, Representation, and Learning
 * /Memory Introduction/
 * /Human Memory/
 * /Computer and Software Memory/
 * /Memory In Distributed Cognitive Systems/
 * /Kinds of Learning/
 * /Learning At Different Levels of Analysis/

Reasoning and Inference
 * /The General Function of Reasoning/
 * /Categorization/
 * /Creativity, Planning, and Imagination/
 * /Biases and Reasoning Heuristics/
 * /Moral Thinking/

Language and Communication
 * /Kinds of Language/
 * /Non-Human Communication/
 * /Human Language/
 * /Logic/
 * /The Language of Thought and Intra-brain Communication/

Development Over the Lifespan
 * /Brain Development/
 * /The Nature-Nurture Debate/
 * /Psychology of Play/
 * /Acting to Learn/
 * /Cognitive Training in Adults/

Cognitive Science and The Real World
 * /How Cognitive Science Can Help You Get Through School/
 * /Myths about Cognition/
 * /Cognitive Science in the Media/
 * /Practical Applications of Cognitive Science/