Mind, Body, World Foundations of Cognitive Science Open Paths to Enriched Learning

Cognitive science arose in the 1950s when it became apparent that anumber of disciplines, including psychology, computer science,linguistics, and philosophy, were fragmenting. Perhaps owing to thefield’s immediate origins in cybernetics, as well as to thefoundational assumption that cognition is information processing,cognitive science initially seemed more unified than psychology.However, as a result of differing interpretations of the foundationalassumption and dramatically divergent views of the meaning of the terminformation processing, three separate schools emerged: classicalcognitive science, connectionist cognitive science, and embodiedcognitive science.Examples, cases, and research findings taken from the wide range ofphenomena studied by cognitive scientists effectively explain andexplore the relationship among the three perspectives. Intended tointroduce both graduate and senior undergraduate students to thefoundations of cognitive science, Mind, Body, Worldaddresses a number of questions currently being asked by thosepracticing in the field: What are the core assumptions of the threedifferent schools? What are the relationships between these differentsets of core assumptions? Is there only one cognitive science, or arethere many different cognitive sciences? Giving the schools equaltreatment and displaying a broad and deep understanding of the field,Dawson highlights the fundamental tensions and lines of fragmentationthat exist among the schools and provides a refreshing and unifyingframework for students of cognitive science.

Michael R. W. Dawson is a professor of psychology atthe University of Alberta. He is the author of numerous scientificpapers as well as the books Understanding Cognitive Science(1998), Minds and Machines (2004), Connectionism: AHands-on Approach (2005), and From Bricks to Brains: TheEmbodied Cognitive Science of LEGO Robots (2010).

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• UBC Press Mind, Body, World book Paperback 520 pages