Towards an atlas of canonical cognitive mechanisms

Pirrone, Angelo and Tsetsos, Konstantinos (2022) Towards an atlas of canonical cognitive mechanisms. Cognitive Science. ISSN 0364-0213 (In Press)

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Abstract

A central goal in Cognitive Science is understanding the mechanisms that underlie cognition. Here, we contend that Cognitive Science, despite intense multidisciplinary efforts, has furnished surprisingly few mechanistic insights. We attribute this slow mechanistic progress to the fact that cognitive scientists insist on performing underdetermined exercises, deriving overparametrised mechanistic theories of complex behaviours and seeking validation of these theories to the elusive notions of optimality and biological plausibility. We propose that mechanistic progress in Cognitive Science will accelerate once cognitive scientists start focusing on simpler explananda that will enable them to chart an atlas of elementary cognitive operations. Looking forward, the next challenge for Cognitive Science will be to understand how these elementary cognitive processes are pieced together to explain complex behaviour.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2023 The Author(s).
Divisions:	CPNSS
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Date Deposited:	11 Jan 2023 17:42
Last Modified:	08 May 2024 21:09
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/117877

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