What is cognitive science?

Cognitive science Cognitive science is usually defined as the interdisciplinary study of how information is represented and transformed in the mind/brain. It consists of multiple research disciplines, including psychology, artificial intelligence, philosophy, neuroscience, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, and education. It spans many levels of analysis, from low-level learning and decision mechanisms to high-level logic and planning; from neural circuitry to modular brain organization. The term cognitive science was coined by Christopher Longuet-Higgins in his 1973 commentary on the Lighthill report, which concerned the then-current state of Artificial Intelligence research. In the same decade, the journal Cognitive Science and the Cognitive Science Society were founded.

Cognitive science and other science 1. Psychology Psychology (lit. "study of the soul" or "study of the mind") is an academic and applied discipline which involves the scientific study of human or animal mental functions and behaviors. In the field of psychology, a professional researcher or practitioner is called a

psychologist. In addition or opposition to employing scientific methods, psychologists often rely upon symbolic interpretation and critical analysis, albeit less frequently than other social scientists such as sociologists. Psychologists study such phenomena as perception, cognition, attention, emotion, motivation, personality, behavior and interpersonal relationships. Some, especially depth psychologists, also consider the unconscious mind.a Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior, while also exploring the underlying physiological and neurological processes. Psychological knowledge is applied to various spheres of human activity including the family, education, employment, and to the treatment of mental health problems. Psychology includes many sub-fields that span areas as diverse as human development, sports, health, industry, media and law. Psychology incorporates research from the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities. The word psychology is from Greek: psukh "breath, spirit, soul"; and -, -logia "study of". 2. Artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science which aims to create it. Textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents,"[1] where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions which maximize its chances of success.John McCarthy, who coined the term in 1956,defines it as "the science and engineering of making intelligent machines." The field was founded on the claim that a central property of humans, intelligencethe sapience of Homo sapienscan be so precisely described that it can be simulated by a machine.This raises philosophical issues about the nature of the mind and limits of scientific hubris, issues which have been addressed by myth, fiction and philosophy since antiquity.Artificial intelligence has been the subject of optimism,but has also suffered setbacks and, today, has become an essential part of the technology industry, providing the heavy lifting for many of the most difficult problems in computer science. AI research is highly technical and specialized, deeply divided into subfields that often fail to communicate with each other. Subfields have grown up around particular institutions, the work of individual researchers, the solution of specific problems, longstanding differences of opinion about how AI should be done and the application of widely differing tools. The central problems of AI include such traits as reasoning, knowledge, planning, learning, communication, perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects. General intelligence (or "strong AI") is still a long-term goal of (some) research. 3. Philosophy Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning subjects such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.

There are at least two senses in which the term philosophy is used. In the more formal sense, philosophy is an academic discipline focusing on the fields of metaphysics, logic, ethics, epistemology, and aesthetics. In the more informal sense, a philosophy is an attitude to life or way or principle of living whose focus is on resolving the most basic existential questions about the human condition. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions (such as mysticism or mythology) by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned argument. Philosophy comes from the Greek [philosophia], which literally translates to "love of wisdom". 4. Neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. Nevertheless, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that involves other disciplines such as cognitive and neuro-psychology, computer science, statistics, physics, philosophy, and medicine. As a result, the scope of neuroscience has broadened to include different approaches used to study the molecular, developmental,structural, functional, evolutionary, computational, and medical aspects of the nervous system. The techniques used by neuroscientists have also expanded enormously, from biophysical and molecular studies of individual nerve cells to imaging of perceptual and motor tasks in the brain. Recent theoretical advances in neuroscience have also been aided by the use of computational modeling of neural networks. The term neurobiology is usually used interchangeably with neuroscience, although the former refers specifically to the biology of the nervous system, whereas the latter refers to the entire science of the nervous system. Given the ever increasing number of neuroscientists that study the nervous system, several prominent neuroscience organizations have been formed to provide a forum to all neuroscientists and educators. For example, the International Brain Research Organization was founded in 1960, the European Brain and Behaviour Society in 1968,and the Society for Neuroscience in 1969. 5. Linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of natural language.Linguistics encompasses a number of subfields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure (grammar) and the study of meaning (semantics and pragmatics). Grammar encompasses morphology (the formation and composition of words), syntax (the rules that determine how words combine into phrases and sentences) and phonology (the study of sound systems and abstract sound units). Phonetics is a related branch of linguistics concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds (phones), non-speech sounds, and how they are produced and perceived. Other sub-disciplines of linguistics include the following: evolutionary linguistics, which considers the origins of language; historical linguistics, which explores language change; sociolinguistics, which looks at the relation between linguistic variation and social structures; psycholinguistics, which explores the representation and functioning of language in the mind; neurolinguistics, which looks at the representation of language in the brain; language acquisition, which considers how children acquire their first language and how children and

adults acquire and learn their second and subsequent languages; and discourse analysis, which is concerned with the structure of texts and conversations, and pragmatics with how meaning is transmitted based on a combination of linguistic competence, non-linguistic knowledge, and the context of the speech act. Linguistics is narrowly defined as the scientific approach to the study of language, but language can, of course, be approached from a variety of directions, and a number of other intellectual disciplines are relevant to it and influence its study. Semiotics, for example, is a related field concerned with the general study of signs and symbols both in language and outside of it. Literary theorists study the use of language in artistic literature. Linguistics additionally draws on work from such diverse fields as psychology, speech-language pathology, informatics, computer science, philosophy, biology, human anatomy, neuroscience, sociology, anthropology, and acoustics. Within the field, linguist is used to describe someone who either studies the field or uses linguistic methodologies to study groups of languages or particular languages. Outside the field, this term is commonly used to refer to people who speak many languages or have a great vocabulary. 6. Anthropology Anthropology is the holistic, global, comparative study of humans. It is the comprehensive study of human beings and of their interactions with each other and the environment. The term "anthropology", pronounced /nrpldi/, is from the Greek , anthrpos, "human", and -, -logia, "discourse" and was first used in English in 1593. Anthropology has its intellectual origins in both the natural sciences and the humanities.Its basic questions concern, "What defines Homo sapiens?" "Who are the ancestors of modern Homo sapiens?" "What are humans' physical traits?" "How do humans behave?" "Why are there variations and differences among different groups of humans?" "How has the evolutionary past of Homo sapiens influenced its social organization and culture?" and so forth. In the United States, contemporary anthropology is typically divided into four subfields: social/cultural anthropology, archaeology, linguistic anthropology and biological anthropology, and this division is reflected in many undergraduate textbooks as well as anthropology programs (e.g. Michigan, Berkeley, UPenn, etc.). Unlike the American system, however, at universities in the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, the subfields are frequently housed in separate departments. The social/cultural subfield has been heavily influenced by post-modern theories. During the 1970s and 1980s there was an epistemological shift away from the positivist traditions that had largely informed the discipline.During this shift, enduring questions about the nature and production of knowledge came to occupy a central place in Cultural and Social Anthropology.

As this is by far the most populous of the subfields, and as archaeology, biological anthropology, and, in many cases, linguistic anthropology remained positivist, anthropology as a discipline has lacked cohesion over the last several decades. This difference in epistemology has even led to departments diverging, perhaps most famously representative is that which occurred in the 1998-9 academic year at Stanford University, where the scientists and non-scientists divided into two departments: Anthropology and Cultural and Social Anthropology.Anthropology at Stanford has since become reunified in the 2008-2009 academic year, perhaps illustrating a growing trend to rethink the approach to anthropology. 7. Education Education in its broadest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual. In its technical sense education is the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another. Teachers in educational institutions direct the education of students and might draw on many subjects, including reading, writing, mathematics, science and history. This process is sometimes called schooling when referring to the education of teaching only a certain subject, usually as professors at institutions of higher learning. There is also education in fields for those who want specific vocational skills, such as those required to be a pilot. In addition there is an array of education possible at the informal level, such as, in museums and libraries, with the Internet and in life experience. The right to education has been described as a basic human right: since 1952, Article 2 of the first Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights obliges all signatory parties to guarantee the right to education. At world level, the United Nations' International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966 guarantees this right under its Article . Ren Descartes Ren Descartes (French pronunciation: [ne dekat]), (31 March 1596 11 February 1650), also known as Renatus Cartesius (Latinized form),[2] was a French philosopher, mathematician, physicist, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the "Father of Modern Philosophy", and much of subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which continue to be studied closely to this day. In particular, his Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments. Descartes' influence in mathematics is also apparent, the Cartesian coordinate system--allowing geometric shapes to be expressed in algebraic equationsbeing named for him. He is credited as the father of analytical geometry. Descartes was also one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution. Descartes frequently sets his views apart from those of his predecessors. In the opening section of the Passions of the Soul, a treatise on the Early Modern version of what are now commonly called emotions, he goes so far as to assert that he will write on this topic "as if no one had

written on these matters before". Many elements of his philosophy have precedents in late Aristotelianism, the revived Stoicism of the 16th century, or in earlier philosophers like St. Augustine. In his natural philosophy, he differs from the Schools on two major points: First, he rejects the analysis of corporeal substance into matter and form; second, he rejects any appeal to endsdivine or naturalin explaining natural phenomena.[3] In his theology, he insists on the absolute freedom of Gods act of creation. Descartes was a major figure in 17th-century continental rationalism, later advocated by Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, and opposed by the empiricist school of thought consisting of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Hume. Leibniz, Spinoza and Descartes were all well versed in mathematics as well as philosophy, and Descartes and Leibniz contributed greatly to science as well. As the inventor of the Cartesian coordinate system, Descartes founded analytic geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, crucial to the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. He is best known for the philosophical statement "Cogito ergo sum" (French: Je pense, donc je suis; English: I think, therefore I am; or I am thinking, therefore I exist), found in part IV of Discourse on the Method (1637 - written in French but with inclusion of "Cogito ergo sum") and 7 of part I of Principles of Philosophy (1644 - written in Latin).