Mental models in cognitive science

Abstract

If cognitive science does not exist then it is necessary to invent it. That slogan accommodates any reasonable attitude about the subject. One attitude-an optimistic one-is that cognitive science already exists and is alive and flourishing in academe: we have all in our different ways been doing it for years. The gentleman in Moliere’s play rejoiced to discover that he had been speaking prose for forty years without realizing it: perhaps we are merely celebrating a similar discovery. And, if we just keep going on in the same way, then we are bound to unravel the workings of the mind. Another attitude-my own-is more pessimistic: experimental psychology is not going to succeed unaided in elucidating human mentality; artificial intelligence is not going to succeed unaided in modelling the mind; nor is any other discipline-linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience, philosophy-going to have any greater success. If we are ever to understand cognition, then we need a new science dedicated to that aim and based only in part on its contributing disciplines. Yet pessimism should not be confused with cynicism. We should reject the view that cognititie science is merely a clever ruse dreamed up to gain research funds-that it is nothing more than six disciplines in search of a grant-giving agency. Cognitive science does not quite exist: its precursors do, but it lacks a clear identity. Perhaps the major function of this conference should be to concentrate our minds on what that identity might be. At present, there appear to be two distinct ideas wrapped up in it: one topic-oriented, and the other methodological. The topic-oriented idea is that workers from several disciplines have converged upon a number of central problems and explanatory concepts. George Miller and 1 became aware of this convergence when we were caught in the toils