Scientific Reasoning and Discovery, Cognitive Psychology of

Abstract

The cognitive mechanisms underlying scientific thinking and discovery have been investigated using approaches from cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. In this article, six overlapping approaches are discussed. First, historical analyses and interviews have provided important information on the types of thinking involved in particular discoveries or used by individual scientists. Second, scientific reasoning has been thought of as a form of inductive thinking, and as a form of problem solving. Researchers using this approach have delineated some of the problem solving and inductive reasoning strategies used in science. Third, much research on errors in scientific reasoning, particularly on the topic of ‘confirmation bias’ has revealed some of the circumstances under which science can go awry. Fourth, many researchers have investigated how children's thinking is similar to, or different from, that of scientists. A fifth approach has been to investigate scientists reasoning live or ‘in vivo’ in their own labs. This work has shown how processes such as analogy, distributed cognition, and specific types of inductive and deductive reasoning strategies are used together by scientists. Finally, the incorporation of cognitive mechanisms into computer programs that make discoveries is seen as an important development in the cognitive psychology of scientific thinking.