Understanding Cognitive Science (Hardcover)

This concise introduction to cognitive science provides the theoretical foundations of classical and connectionist cognitive science to illustrate the underlying unity of the field. It approaches cognitive science through the 'tri-level hypothesis' which assumes that the diverse fields of cognitive science should not be studied together, but also in constant communication with each other, rather than as a collection of otherwise only cognitively friendly disciplines.

Assuming the foundational idea that cognition is information processing, Understanding Cognitive Science describes different levels of analysis through the discussion of processes such as language, learning, vision, and memory. It closes by analyzing the anti-computational arguments against the traditional cognitive science orthodoxy, examining the mind as a dynamic system rather than a computer and picturing connectionism as an alternative to computationalism. The coverage of these debates serves to define the current discipline of cognitive science and to overview the controversies surrounding the field.