Experienced Cognition

This volume presents a theoretical framework for understanding consciousness and learning. Drawing on work in cognitive psychology and philosophy, this framework begins with the observation that to be conscious is literally to have a point of view. From this starting point, the book develops a descriptive scheme that allows perceptual, symbolic, and emotional awareness to be discussed in common theoretical terms, compatible with a computational view of the mind. A central theme is our experience of ourselves as agents, consciously controlling activities situated in environments. In contrast to previous theories of consciousness, the experienced cognition framework emphasizes the changes in conscious control as individuals acquire skills. The book is divided into four parts. The first introduces the central themes and places them in the context of information-processing theory and empirical research on cognitive skill. The second develops the theoretical framework, emphasizing the unity of perceptual, symbolic, and emotional awareness and the relation of conscious to nonconscious processes. The third applies the experienced cognition framework to a variety of topics in cognitive psychology, including working memory, problem solving, and reasoning. It also includes discussions of everyday action, skill, and expertise, focusing on changes in conscious control with increasing fluency. The last concludes the book by evaluating the recent debate on the "cognitive unconscious" and implicit cognition from the perspective of experienced cognition, and considering the prospects for a cognitive psychology focused on persons. This book addresses many of the issues raised in philosophical treatments of consciousness from the point of view of empirical cognitive psychology. For example, the structure of conscious mental states is addressed by considering how to describe them in terms of variables suitable for information-processing theory. Understanding conscious states in this way also provides a basis for developing empirical hypotheses, for example, about the relation of emotion and cognition, about the apparent "mindlessness" of skilled activity, and about the nature and role of goals in guiding activity. Criticisms of the computational view of mind are addressed by showing that the role of first-person perspectives in cognition can be described and investigated in theoretical terms compatible with a broadly-conceived information-processing theory of cognition.

This volume presents a theoretical framework for understanding consciousness and learning. Drawing on work in cognitive psychology and philosophy, this framework begins with the observation that to be conscious is literally to have a point of view. From this starting point, the book develops a descriptive scheme that allows perceptual, symbolic, and emotional awareness to be discussed in common theoretical terms, compatible with a computational view of the mind. A central theme is our experience of ourselves as agents, consciously controlling activities situated in environments. In contrast to previous theories of consciousness, the experienced cognition framework emphasizes the changes in conscious control as individuals acquire skills. The book is divided into four parts. The first introduces the central themes and places them in the context of information-processing theory and empirical research on cognitive skill. The second develops the theoretical framework, emphasizing the unity of perceptual, symbolic, and emotional awareness and the relation of conscious to nonconscious processes. The third applies the experienced cognition framework to a variety of topics in cognitive psychology, including working memory, problem solving, and reasoning. It also includes discussions of everyday action, skill, and expertise, focusing on changes in conscious control with increasing fluency. The last concludes the book by evaluating the recent debate on the "cognitive unconscious" and implicit cognition from the perspective of experienced cognition, and considering the prospects for a cognitive psychology focused on persons. This book addresses many of the issues raised in philosophical treatments of consciousness from the point of view of empirical cognitive psychology. For example, the structure of conscious mental states is addressed by considering how to describe them in terms of variables suitable for information-processing theory. Understanding conscious states in this way also provides a basis for developing empirical hypotheses, for example, about the relation of emotion and cognition, about the apparent "mindlessness" of skilled activity, and about the nature and role of goals in guiding activity. Criticisms of the computational view of mind are addressed by showing that the role of first-person perspectives in cognition can be described and investigated in theoretical terms compatible with a broadly-conceived information-processing theory of cognition.

A book that produces sensory experiences while bringing the concept of experience itself into relief as a subject of criticism and an object of contemplation. Experience offers a reading experience like no other. A heat-sensitive cover by Olafur Eliasson reveals words, colors, and a drawing when touched by human hands. Endpapers designed by Carsten Höller are printed in ink containing carefully calibrated quantities of the synthesized human pheromones estratetraenol and androstadienone, evoking the suggestibility of human desire. The margins and edges of the book are designed by Tauba Auerbach in complementary colors that create a dynamically shifting effect when the book is shifted or closed. When the book is opened, bookmarks cascade from the center, emerging from spider web prints by Tomás Saraceno. Experience produces experience while bringing the concept itself into relief as an object of contemplation. The sensory experience of the book as a physical object resonates with the intellectual experience of the book as a container of ideas. Experience convenes a conversation with artists, musicians, philosophers, anthropologists, historians, and neuroscientists, each of whom explores aspects of sensorial and cultural realms of experience. The texts include new essays written for this volume and classic texts by such figures as William James and Michel Foucault. The first publication from MIT's Center for Art, Science, & Technology, Experience approaches its subject through multiple modes. Publication design by Kimberly Varella with Becca Lofchie, Content Object Design Studio. Cover concept by Olafur Eliasson in collaboration with Kimberly Varella (Content Object). Contributors Tauba Auerbach, Bevil Conway, John Dewey, Olafur Eliasson, Michel Foucault, Adam Frank, Vittorio Gallese, Renée Green, Stefan Helmreich, Carsten Höller, Edmund Husserl, William James, Caroline A. Jones, Douglas Kahn, Brian Kane, Leah Kelly, Bruno Latour, Alvin Lucier, David Mather, Mara Mills, Alva Noë, Jacques Rancière, Michael Rossi, Tomás Saraceno, Natasha Schüll, Joan W.Scott, Tino Sehgal, Alma Steingart, Josh Tenenbaum, Rebecca Uchill

"This is a book for artists, but it is also for curators, art school faculty, landscape architects, gallerists, archivists, post-disciplinary multi-hyphenates, museum program staff, and anyone who wants to know about the ways art and congnitive science come together to engage an audience."--Cover

This book offers students an introduction to human spatial cognition and experience and is designed for graduate and advanced undergraduate students who are interested in the study of maps in the head and the psychology of space. We live in space and space surrounds us. We interact with space all the time, consciously or unconsciously, and make decisions and actions based on our perceptions of that space. Have you ever wondered how some people navigate perfectly using maps in their heads while other people get lost even with a physical map? What do you mean when you say you have a poor "sense of direction"? How do we know where we are? How do we use and represent information about space? This book clarifies that our knowledge and feelings emerge as a consequence of our interactions with the surrounding space, and show that the knowledge and feelings direct, guide, or limit our spatial behavior and experience. Space matters, or more specifically space we perceive matters. Research into spatial cognition and experience, asking fundamental questions about how and why space and spatiality matters to humans, has thus attracted attention. It is no coincidence that the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for research into a positioning system in the brain or "inner GPS" and that spatial information and technology are recognized as an important social infrastructure in recent years. This is the first book aimed at graduate and advanced undergraduate students pursuing this fascinating area of research. The content introduces the reader to the field of spatial cognition and experience with a series of chapters covering theoretical, empirical, and practical issues, including cognitive maps, spatial orientation, spatial ability and thinking, geospatial information, navigation assistance, and environmental aesthetics.

Edwin Hutchins combines his background as an anthropologist and an open ocean racing sailor and navigator in this account of how anthropological methods can be combined with cognitive theory to produce a new reading of cognitive science. His theoretical insights are grounded in an extended analysis of ship navigation—its computational basis, its historical roots, its social organization, and the details of its implementation in actual practice aboard large ships. The result is an unusual interdisciplinary approach to cognition in culturally constituted activities outside the laboratory—"in the wild." Hutchins examines a set of phenomena that have fallen in the cracks between the established disciplines of psychology and anthropology, bringing to light a new set of relationships between culture and cognition. The standard view is that culture affects the cognition of individuals. Hutchins argues instead that cultural activity systems have cognitive properties of their own that are different from the cognitive properties of the individuals who participate in them. Each action for bringing a large naval vessel into port, for example, is informed by culture: the navigation team can be seen as a cognitive and computational system. Introducing Navy life and work on the bridge, Hutchins makes a clear distinction between the cognitive properties of an individual and the cognitive properties of a system. In striking contrast to the usual laboratory tasks of research in cognitive science, he applies the principal metaphor of cognitive science—cognition as computation (adopting David Marr's paradigm)—to the navigation task. After comparing modern Western navigation with the method practiced in Micronesia, Hutchins explores the computational and cognitive properties of systems that are larger than an individual. He then turns to an analysis of learning or change in the organization of cognitive systems at several scales. Hutchins's conclusion illustrates the costs of ignoring the cultural nature of cognition, pointing to the ways in which contemporary cognitive science can be transformed by new meanings and interpretations. A Bradford Book

A new edition of a classic work that originated the “embodied cognition” movement and was one of the first to link science and Buddhist practices. This classic book, first published in 1991, was one of the first to propose the “embodied cognition” approach in cognitive science. It pioneered the connections between phenomenology and science and between Buddhist practices and science—claims that have since become highly influential. Through this cross-fertilization of disparate fields of study, The Embodied Mind introduced a new form of cognitive science called “enaction,” in which both the environment and first person experience are aspects of embodiment. However, enactive embodiment is not the grasping of an independent, outside world by a brain, a mind, or a self; rather it is the bringing forth of an interdependent world in and through embodied action. Although enacted cognition lacks an absolute foundation, the book shows how that does not lead to either experiential or philosophical nihilism. Above all, the book's arguments were powered by the conviction that the sciences of mind must encompass lived human experience and the possibilities for transformation inherent in human experience. This revised edition includes substantive introductions by Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch that clarify central arguments of the work and discuss and evaluate subsequent research that has expanded on the themes of the book, including the renewed theoretical and practical interest in Buddhism and mindfulness. A preface by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the originator of the mindfulness-based stress reduction program, contextualizes the book and describes its influence on his life and work.

When retrieving a quote from memory, evaluating a testimony’s truthfulness, or deciding which products to buy, people experience immediate feelings of ease or difficulty, of fluency or disfluency. Such "experiences of thinking" occur with every cognitive process, including perceiving, processing, storing, and retrieving information, and they have been the defining element of a vibrant field of scientific inquiry during the last four decades. This book brings together the latest research on how such experiences of thinking influence cognition and behavior. The chapters present recent theoretical developments and describe the effects of these influences, as well as the practical implications of this research. The book includes contributions from the leading scholars in the field and provides a comprehensive survey of this expanding area. This integrative overview will be invaluable to researchers, teachers, students, and professionals in the field of social and cognitive psychology.