Human Intellect And Cognitive Science

The advancement of knowledge concerning the complexities of human intellective processes can best be achieved by combining theory and research from the disciplines of cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence. Wagman explores various aspects of these disciplines to further his ideas. He examines the nature of the human intellect and proposes a theory of representation and intelligence that is applicable to human, computer, and animal cognition. He also evaluates theory and research concerned with structure and process in human reasoning and human problem solving. Several scientific discovery systems including BACON, FARENHEIT, and IDS are described in depth. The ability of these systems to emulate solutions to 10 types of scientific problems is examined. The capacity theory of language comprehension is also presented and extended to the domain of cognitive processes.

Cognitive Science combines the interdisciplinary streams of cognitive science into a unified narrative in an all-encompassing introduction to the field. This text presents cognitive science as a discipline in its own right, and teaches students to apply the techniques and theories of the cognitive scientist's 'toolkit' - the vast range of methods and tools that cognitive scientists use to study the mind. Thematically organized, rather than by separate disciplines, Cognitive Science underscores the problems and solutions of cognitive science, rather than those of the subjects that contribute to it - psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, etc. The generous use of examples, illustrations, and applications demonstrates how theory is applied to unlock the mysteries of the human mind. Drawing upon cutting-edge research, the text has been updated and enhanced to incorporate new studies and key experiments since the first edition. A new chapter on consciousness has also been added.

Does science argue against the existence of the human soul? Many scientists and scholars believe the whole is more than the sum of the parts. This book uses information and systems theory to describe the "more" that does not reduce to the parts. One sees this in the synapses”or apparently empty gaps between the neurons in one's brain”where informative relationships give rise to human mind, culture, and spirituality. Drawing upon the disciplines of cognitive science, computer science, neuroscience, general systems theory, pragmatic philosophy, and Christian theology, Mark Graves reinterprets the traditional doctrine of the soul as form of the body to frame contemporary scientific study of the human soul.

In a richly detailed analysis, Von Eckardt (philosophy, U. of Nebraska) lays the foundation for understanding what it means to be a cognitive scientist. She characterizes the basic assumptions that define the cognitive science approach and systematically sorts out a host of recent issues and controversies surrounding them. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This scholarly book presents and critically evaluates the outstanding contributions of both cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence to our understanding of the nature of intelligence and intelligent systems. Examining conceptual thought across the domains of reasoning and logic, language and analogy, and scientific discovery, Wagman compares human reasoning with computer reasoning. Of special interest to readers is the general critique of artificial intelligence research directed toward the ultimate objective of mapping and surpassing all of human knowledge. The first chapter examines the theoretical foundations of the logical approach to artificial intelligence and the centrality of declarative knowledge and the predicate calculus. The artifical intelligence system, CYC, is critically examined with respect to its avowed objective of matching or surpassing human intelligence. The second chapter focuses on the probabilistic contrast model of causal reasoning and underscores its significance as a mathematical conceptualization of human reasoning. In the third chapter, the ARCS (Analogical Retrieval by Constraint Satisfaction) system is discussed and its psychological validity is evaluated. In the fourth chapter, scientific heuristics characteristics of different developmental levels and differentially applied in the discovery spaces of hypotheses and experiments are analyzed in the context of the philosophy of science. The fifth chapter presents the logic, principles, and applications of PAULINE, a pragmatic language generation system and explains human language pragmatics.

The general unified theory of intelligence addresses the cognitive functions of thinking, reasoning, and problem solving. At an abstract level, this theory construes the intellective functions of humans and computers as, respectively, restricted and directed forms of the logic of implication. In other words, human intelligence operates according to production rules. Here, Wagman presents the central tenets and research elaboration of the general unified theory of intelligence that embraces both human and artifical intelligence across the cognitive domains of scientific discovery processes, inductive and deductive reasoning, and the mechanisms basic to analogical thinking and problem solving.

Following the introductory chapter, each succeeding chapter focuses on a major component of cognition. Each cognitive component (logic, reasoning, problem solving, language, memory, learning, discovery) is analyzed from the perspectives of human intellect and artificial intelligence. The dual perspectives are then compared. The analyses and the comparisons take account of basic theory and describe contemporary research. The technical theory and research is considered against a broad background of intellectual history and psychological implication. This book is intended for anyone aware of the new intellectual paradigm and psychological challenge of artificial intelligence. It is written for the general reader, as well as for university students in cognitive science programs, artificial intelligence, psychology, and philosophy courses, and for professionals in these and related fields. --from preface.

A scholarly examination of the centrality of the mind-body problem within and across the science of cognition—from philosophy to psychology to artificial intelligence to neural science. Conceptions of the mind-body problem range from the heritage of Cartesianism to the identification of the circumscribed brain structures responsible for domain specific cognitive mechanisms. Neither narrowly technical nor philosophically vague, this is a structured and detailed account of advancing intellectual developments in theory, research, and knowledge illumined by the conceptual vicissitudes of the mind-body problem. This unique treatment will be of special interest to creative scholars in the disciplines of he sciences of cognition.