What Is Cognitive Science

What is cognitive science? A scientific explanation would be “the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence, embracing philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology.” (1) But what does that mean, cognitive science has been quitely growing since ancient Greece when philosphers debated and struggled to uderstand the questions what is the mind, and what is knowing. Philosepher are still debating that question even today, however in the mid 1950’s while the psychological world was dominated by the likes of Skinner and Watson and their behavorist models of learning cognitive science made its debut. At the forefront of the field were three primary theorists; Jerome Bruner, Lev Vygotsky, and Jean Pieaget. With their theories human learning was no longer thought of as stimulus response, but instead as a product of the mind not bound to a reinforcer or punisher.

Jerome Bruner began working on his theories for cognitive science in the 1940’s and on some of the works he developed still influence us today. The basis for learing from Bruner is that people tend to learn through disovery, were we aquire new information based largely on our own efforts, as opposed to the behaviorist theory that we require some kind of stimulus in order to learn. “Bruner's work in cognitive psychology led to an interest in the cognitive development of children and related issues of education, and in the 1960s he developed a theory of cognitive growth.” (2) In this theory he developed three stages in which humans develop, the first Enactive representaion where young children will express their world in terms of sensation or action. The next stage, Iconic representation we develop representative icons that we use to understand the world, for example a child may develop an icon for вЂ?dog’ all and thus all four legged creatures that appear similar to this icon of вЂ?dog’ shall be henceforth called dog by the child. The last stage Bruner developed is Symbolic Representation, where we use symbols such as language and abstract ideas to represent our world.

Lev Vygotsky, a russian psychologist believed that people develop through their interactions with each other and their environment. He believed that culture played a large role in the potential a person has as they grow. The major break through Vygotsky made in cognitive science was his development of the вЂ?Zone of Proximal Development.’ (ZPD) The basic concept for Vygotsky’s ZPD was that the “ZPD refers to the gap between what a given child can achieve alone, their Ð'Ò'potential development as determined by independent problem solvingÐ'Ò', and what they can achieve вЂ?through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (3). Vygotsky developed one other concept that he combined with the ZPD which is Scaffolding, Scaffolding is the support which capable adults and teachers give to children to help the in the ZPD.

The final leading theorist in the field of cognitive science is Jean Piaget. Aside from Vygotsky, Piaget is probably the most well known psychologist in the field, however he is most well known for his studies in developmental psychology. Piaget is most well known for his theory of developmental stages that we go through; stage one is the sensorimotor stage where an infant begins to understand its world through touch and sensation. The second stage is the preoperational stage “during this stage, children start to use mental imagery and language. Children here are very egocentric. These children view things that are happening around them in only one point of view...their's. Piaget probably found that his own children at this age could not reason why their parents felt the way they did, but only reasoned from what the children knew. Children in this stage think in a non-logical and nonreversible pattern.” (4) The third stage, known as Concrete Operational, in this stage “Piaget found that children are capable of taking another person's point of view and incorporating more than one perspective simultaneously. At this stage the child can see and reason with concrete knowledge