Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Science of the Mind

by José Luis Bermúdez

Overview

The Third Edition of this popular and engaging text consolidates the interdisciplinary streams of cognitive science to present a unified narrative of cognitive science as a discipline in its own right. It teaches students to apply the techniques and theories of the cognitive scientist's 'toolkit' - the vast range of methods and tools that cognitive scientists use to study the mind. Thematically organized, Cognitive Science underscores the problems and solutions of cognitive science rather than more narrowly examining individually the subjects that contribute to it - psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, and so on. The generous use of examples, illustrations, and applications demonstrates how theory is applied to unlock the mysteries of the human mind. Drawing upon cutting-edge research, the text has been substantially revised, with new material on Bayesian approaches to the mind and on deep learning. An extensive on-line set of resources is available to aid instructors and students alike. Sample syllabi show how the text can support a variety of courses, making it a highly flexible teaching and learning resource at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Instructor and student resources available at https://www.bermudezcogsci.com/

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108585415
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/30/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	40 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

José Luis Bermúdez's research interests are interdisciplinary in nature at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience. His many books include The Paradox of Self-Consciousness (MIT Press, 1998), which analyzes the nature of self-awareness; Thinking without Words (Oxford, 2003), which offers a model for thinking about the cognitive achievements and abilities of prelinguistic infants and nonlinguistic humans, and Decision Theory and Rationality (Oxford, 2009), which explores tensions in how the concept of rationality is defined and formalized in different academic disciplines. Recent books include Understanding “I”: Language and Thought, published by Oxford University Press in 2017 and The Bodily Self: Selected Essays by MIT Press in 2018. His most recent book, The Power of Frames (Cambridge, 2020) was supported by an ACLS fellowship for 2018-2019 and an NEH Summer Stipend for 2018. A target article with peer commentary based on The Power of Frames appeared in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2022).

Table of Contents

Preface; Introduction: the challenge of cognitive science; Part I. Historical Landmarks: 1. The prehistory of cognitive science; 2. The discipline matures: three milestones; 3. The turn to the brain; Part II. Models and Tools: 4. Physical symbol systems and the language of thought; 5. Neural networks and distributed information processing; 6. Applying dynamical systems theory to model the mind; 7. Bayesianism in cognitive science; 8. Modules and architectures; 9. Strategies for brain mapping; Part III. Applications: 10. Models of language learning; 11. Object perception and folk physics; 12. Machine learning: from expert systems to deep learning; 13. Exploring mindreading; 14. Robotics: from GOFAI to situated cognition and behavior-based robotics; 15. The cognitive science of consciousness; 16. The emotions: from cognitive science to affective science; 17. Looking ahead: challenges and opportunities; Glossary; References; Index.