About Cognitive Science

Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary field that focuses on the description, modeling, analysis, and general scientific study of the mind and cognition. Researchers in many disciplines--such as psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, and neuroscience--have found that they can work together fruitfully to answer questions about the mind that have puzzled people for centuries. The following are among the topics studied by cognitive science.

• concept formation, memory, perception, learning, reasoning, and problem solving
• artificial intelligence (AI) and its implications, the nature and representation of knowledge in expert systems, and computer modeling of reasoning, learning, language use, problem solving, and planning
• language learning and comprehension, and the mental representation of grammar and meaning
• the neurophysiological bases of thinking and consciousness
• cognitive development in infants and children
• animal intelligence and cognition
• the nature, scope, and limits of human knowledge and our capacities for reasoning and thinking