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Cognitive Science Glossary: A–C

Cognitive science terms A–C: abduction, abstraction, adaptation, thinking, algorithm, anatomy, folk psychology, association, behaviorism, and other key concepts.

This section contains key cognitive science concepts starting with letters A–C.

A

Abduction

A form of reasoning where conclusions are justified by their ability to explain premises or available evidence. Often called "inference to the best explanation." The term originates from C.S. Peirce's pragmatist philosophy.

Example: You see wet grass and infer that it rained, because rain best explains your observation.

Abstraction

  1. Non-material, non-concrete entities lacking physical properties, such as mathematical objects, propositions, and concepts.
  2. Psychological properties requiring cognitive processing beyond pure perception.
  3. In physics, idealized descriptions that simplify by omitting certain properties.
  4. A mental operation extracting general elements from individual observations.

Adaptation

  1. Evolutionarily developed biological traits making organisms better suited to their environment through natural selection.
  2. Individual organism changes during development improving fit to personal environment.
  3. Sensory organ adjustment to environmental changes.
  4. Long-term plastic changes in phenotype.

Algorithm

Step-by-step symbolic manipulation rules implementing mathematical functions mechanically. Requires no intelligence and is formalizable without semantic interpretation.

Analytic and Synthetic Truth

Analytic truths depend solely on word meanings, independent of external facts (Kant's example: "All bachelors are unmarried").

Synthetic truths require external factual verification.

Anatomy

Branch of biology studying organism and subsystem structure and composition.

A Priori and A Posteriori Knowledge

A priori knowledge doesn't depend on observation (e.g., 2+2=4).

A posteriori knowledge derives from experience and observation of actual facts.

Argument

  1. A reasoning chain defending a theory through precise definitions and logical deduction.
  2. A set of propositions where some premises attempt proving a conclusion through logical deduction.
  3. A logical reasoning chain deriving conclusions from premises.
  4. A dispute presenting supporting and counter-arguments.

Association

A connection formed between two meaningful things in individual cognition, whether between thoughts/internal representations or external stimuli.

Attention

The cognitive process that selects and focuses resources on specific information.

Types:

  • Selective attention: Focusing on one target
  • Divided attention: Processing multiple targets simultaneously
  • Involuntary attention: Automatic attention shift
  • Voluntary attention: Controlled attention direction

B

Behaviorism

An early psychology school emphasizing objective experimental methods and natural science approach. All psychological claims must be based on stimulus and behavior observations, not introspection.

Key figures:

  • John B. Watson
  • B.F. Skinner
  • Ivan Pavlov

Biology

Natural science studying organisms, their structure, functions, distribution, reproduction, and natural history.

Bias

A systematic deviation from rational thinking or objectivity.

Cognitive biases:

  • Confirmation bias: Tendency to seek information supporting one's beliefs
  • Availability bias: Easily recalled things influence judgment
  • Anchoring: First information affects later estimates
  • Hindsight bias: Past events seem predictable in retrospect

C

Causality

Cause-effect relations; one thing producing change in another, described through causal laws in natural sciences.

Key questions:

  • What is cause and what is effect?
  • Can correlation imply causation?

Classical Cognitive Science

Based on the computational hypothesis; treats mental representations as symbols with syntax-based operations implementing computations.

Cognition

Information processing underlying intelligent behavior in humans, animals, or artificial systems.

Cognitive processes:

  • Perception
  • Attention
  • Memory
  • Language
  • Thinking
  • Decision-making

Cognitive Architecture

A theory of how cognitive computations are executed—information representation structures. Classical symbolic versus connectionist neural architectures compete.

Examples:

  • ACT-R (symbolic)
  • Soar (symbolic)
  • Neural networks (connectionist)

Cognitive Psychology

Experimental psychology developed in the 1950s studying knowledge-related phenomena: memory, perception, attention, thinking, and language.

Compositionality

A property of representation systems where complex representations contain constituents combined by rules, with complex meaning depending only on constituent meanings and combination rules.

Computation

  1. Mechanical calculation via algorithm.
  2. Any representational manipulation that's rationally coherent.

Computational hypothesis: Brains are computational information-processing systems.

Computationalism

  1. The hypothesis that mind/brain is a computational system.
  2. A methodological principle formalizing models as computer programs.
  3. A hypothesis requiring stronger models than association.

Concept

  1. A productive, systematic, compositional representation system element that forms the basis for thinking.
  2. Propositional building blocks/constituents.
  3. Environmental object classifications.
  4. Scientific theory meaning elements.

Conditioning

Behavioral learning:

Classical conditioning: A neutral stimulus acquires a reaction through association with an unconditional stimulus.

  • E.g., Pavlov's dog: bell + food → salivation to bell

Instrumental conditioning: Behavior followed by reinforcing stimuli increases.

  • E.g., Rat presses lever to get food

Connectionism

Neural network model-based artificial intelligence and modeling.

Features:

  • Distributed representations
  • Parallel processing
  • Learning through weight adjustment

Consciousness

Subjective experience; what things feel like from the inside.

Problems of consciousness:

  • Easy problem: How do brains process information?
  • Hard problem: Why does processing feel like something?

Theories:

  • Global Workspace Theory (Baars)
  • Integrated Information Theory (Tononi)
  • Higher-Order Theories
  • Illusionism

Constituent

  1. A structural component.
  2. In cognitive science: representations can be primitive or complex with formally rule-based combinations.
  3. In linguistics: sentence structural parts forming hierarchic constituent structures.