Lecture 5 Fields

Question 1

Historically core fields

Answer 1

Psychology
Philosophy
Computer Science
Linguistics

Question 2

Secondary Field

Answer 2

Education

Anthropology

Question 3

Psychology

Answer 3

The study of natural minds, (takes up about 60% of the fields) study how living beings function and how they think. It does this through studies to support or disconfirm ones Theory.

Question 4

Cognitive Psychology

Answer 4

Broad field of basic research in human internal mental processes

Question 5

Computer Interaction (HCI)

Answer 5

How people psychologically interact with artifacts (human- designed things), such as user interfaces

Question 6

Evolutionary Psychology

Answer 6

How our evolutionary history has

made our minds what they are

Question 7

Psycholinguistics

Answer 7

Studying language with experiments( how do we understand and come up with language)

Question 8

Comparative Psychology

Answer 8

Animal cognition, sometimes

comparing it to human

Question 9

Psychology: critiques

Answer 9

Not enough model building especially with computers.
Not enough theory, there are no theoretical psychologists.
Methodologically limited ( wont embrace methods of other fields)
Psychologists tend to disregard the complexity of language.

Question 10

Philosophy

Answer 10

Usually in to big questions, what certain concepts and words mean.
Methods involve thinking and writing( thought experiment, conceptual analysis, argumentation, theorizing from evidence from other fields and common observations.

Question 11

Philosophy of Mind

Answer 11

• Can machines be conscious?
• Functionalism vs. identity theory
• Qualia (subjective experience)
• Which animals feel pain?

Question 12

Philosophy of Science

Answer 12

• How should science be practiced?
• How is science practiced?
• Philosophy of psychology
(the science)
• What mental categories are
scientifically legitimate?

Question 13

Philosophy of Language

Answer 13

• How do words connect to meanings?
• How can a word refer to something
that does not exist?

Question 14

Philosophy Critiques

Answer 14

They don’t pay enough attention to
empirical study.
They sometimes think that the existence of
a word implies the existence of its
intended referent.
They are concerned with
too many unimportant
problems.

Question 15

Computer Science

Answer 15

Characterized by:
• Subject Matter: How mental processes can work
on machines, and how computers can effectively
interact with humans

• Methods: building and
testing computer programs

To look at minds as a program/ software

Question 16

Artificial Intelligence

Answer 16

Building mental processes with computer programs.
To understand and can create mental system.

(Most concerned with building functional systems not so much focusing on the Human mind.)

Question 17

Artificial Intelligence: Critiques

Answer 17

Insufficiently concerned with natural
intelligence
• AI researchers usually don’t care if their programs
work the same way that people or animals do

• Even those doing psychological AI don’t know enough about empirical findings, or don’t try to build in the mistakes people make

Overly optimistic about the future of AI

Fail to understand the necessity to implement human mistakes in their systems

Question 18

Linguistics

Answer 18

Characterized by:
• Subject Matter: human spoken or signed natural language

NOT computer or animal languages

NOT (for the most part) written language
• Methods: sound analysis, grammar creation, corpus
analysis

Interested in how language works, how grammar works with the brain more descriptive rather then prescriptive), especially uncovering grammar rules we don’t even think about.

Question 19

Linguistic: Critiques

Answer 19

They build models of language and then
don’t know what to do with them.

They are not familiar with, nor do they try
to interact with, other findings about the
mind.

They only concern
themselves with one
part of cognition.

Question 20

Neuroscience

Answer 20

Cognitive Neuroscience is characterized by

• Subject matter: how the brain processes information
and creates cognitive processes. The biological
functions of mental phenomena.
• Methods: neuroimaging, single -cell recording,
anatomical observation, computer modeling,
pharmaceutical effects, genetic analysis, etc.

Overlaps with biological
and physiological
psychology,
neuropsychology, and the
rest of neuroscience

Question 21

Neuroscience Critiques

Answer 21

Underestimate the complexity of language and other thought processes.

Completely unable to shed light on many of the processes everyone else is interested in.

They tend to be dismissive of other approaches or reductionist

Lean too far toward nature on the nature/nurture
debate.

Question 22

Education

Answer 22

Really hard to do, very well. So many factors that impact education, very hard to study.

Characterized by:
• Subject matter: how people (usually children)
learn, and how we can design education to help
them effectively do it.

• Methods: Naturalistic observation of case studies,
empirical studies

Question 23

Education Critiques

Answer 23

Case studies are worthless or close to it.

It’s too applied and not telling us enough
about basic cognitive processes.

The controlled studies are poorly done.

(To their credit, they’re very
expensive and hard.)

They only deal with one
part of cognition.

Question 24

Cognitive Anthropology

Answer 24

How culture and is taught and spread communally.

Characterized by:
• Subject matter: Social organization, human culture,
enculturation, cultural change and transmission,
shared knowledge, distributed cognition, situated
cognition

• Methods: Field work, ethnographic observation and interviewing. Emphasis on qualitative study.

Anthropology includes things like archeology.

Cultural anthropology includes cognitive.

Question 25

Anthropology Critiques

Answer 25

Tend to lean too far on the nurture side of
the nature/nurture debate.

Research is too qualitative. ( not empirical study, requires skepticism)

Research is too expensive.

Research does not generalize enough to be
useful.

They are “splitters” rather than “lumpers.”
(meaning lumpers put things together making large generalizations, splitters tend to separate general knowledge.)

Question 26

Cognitive Science

Answer 26

Subject matter: Study of minds and
thinking, especially at the information
processing level.

Methodological Definition: Applies methodologies from multiple disciplines to multiple problems from
those disciplines.