Disciplines
Cognitive Science
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of mind and intelligence, drawing on psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, neuroscience and anthropology to understand how information is represented and processed by natural and artificial systems alike. The field's intellectual origins crystallized around 1956, when researchers in previously separate disciplines began treating the mind as an information-processing system open to precise, computational study. George Miller showed that short-term memory limits could be overcome by recoding information into chunks; Noam Chomsky rejected behaviorist accounts of language in favor of mental grammars built from rules; and John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Allen Newell and Herbert Simon laid the foundations of artificial intelligence as a computational theory of mind. It took more than two decades for the interdisciplinary program to acquire formal institutional structure: the Cognitive Science Society incorporated in Massachusetts in 1979 and held its first annual conference in La Jolla, California that August. Cognitive science remains defined more by its interdisciplinary method, treating the mind as a system that can be modeled and tested, than by any single unified theory of what a mind is.
Facts
Central QuestionIs thought best explained as a form of computation over mental representations, and if so, what representational format captures the actual structure of a mind, whether biological or artificial? 1 ScopeCognitive science is the interdisciplinary study of the mind and its processes, drawing on psychology, linguistics, philosophy, neuroscience, computer science and anthropology to examine perception, memory, reasoning, language and consciousness. 1 SignificanceCognitive science coalesced from a set of separate 1950s developments, among them George Miller's 1956 paper on the limits of short-term memory, into a recognized field only after the term gained currency in the 1970s, formalized with the founding of the Cognitive Science Society in 1979. 1 Disputed
Founded Year1956 marks the intellectual founding, when researchers across psychology, linguistics and the new field of artificial intelligence converged on treating the mind as an information-processing system. The field's institutional founding came later and separately: the Cognitive Science Society was incorporated in 1979. Sources distinguish the two moments rather than settling on one founding date. Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
The Cognitive Science Society, incorporated 1979, is the fields principal professional society.
Founded By
One of several convergent founding figures alongside Herbert Simon, Noam Chomsky, Allen Newell and Marvin Minsky; no single founder is credited.
Has Scientist
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.