The book presents the case that cognitive science should turn its attention to developing theories of human cognition that cover the full range of human perceptual, cognitive, and action phenomena. Cognitive science has now produced a massive number of high-quality regularities with many microtheories that reveal important mechanisms. The need for integration is pressing and will continue to increase. Equally important, cognitive science now has the theoretical concepts and tools to support serious attempts at unified theories. The argument is made (...) entirely by presenting an exemplar unified theory of cognition both to show what a real unified theory would be like and to provide convincing evidence that such theories are feasible. The exemplar is SOAR, a cognitive architecture, which is realized as a software system. After a detailed discussion of the architecture and its properties, with its relation to the constraints on cognition in the real world and to existing ideas in cognitive science, SOAR is used as theory for a wide range of cognitive phenomena: immediate responses ; discrete motor skills ; memory and learning ; problem solving ; language ; and development. The treatments vary in depth and adequacy, but they clearly reveal a single, highly specific, operational theory that works over the entire range of human cognition, SOAR is presented as an exemplar unified theory, not as the sole candidate. Cognitive science is not ready yet for a single theory – there must be multiple attempts. But cognitive science must begin to work toward such unified theories. (shrink)

Converging data from different disciplines are showing the role of classical conditioning processes in the elaboration of human and animal behavior to be larger than previously supposed. Restricted views of classically conditioned responses as merely secretory, reflexive, or emotional are giving way to a broader conception that includes problem-solving, and other rule-governed behavior thought to be the exclusive province of either operant conditiońing or cognitive psychology. These new views have been accompanied by changes in the way conditioning is conducted and (...) evaluated. Data from a number of seemingly unrelated phenomena such as relapse to drug abuse by postaddicts, the placebo effect, and the immune response appear to involve classical conditioning processes. Classical conditioning, moreover, has been found to occur in simpler and simpler organisms and recently even demonstrated in brain slices and in utero. This target article will integrate the several research areas that have used the classical conditioning process as an explanatory model; it will challenge teleological interpretations of the classically conditioned CR and offer some basic principles for testing conditioning in diverse areas. (shrink)

Responses are strengthened by consequences having to do with the survival of individuals and species. With respect to the provenance of behavior, we know more about ontogenic than phylogenic contingencies. The contingencies responsible for unlearned behavior acted long ago. This remoteness affects our scientific methods, both experimental and conceptual. Until we have identified he variables responsible for an event, we tend to invent causes. Explanatory entities such as “instincts,” “drives,” and “traits” still survive. Unable to show how organisms can behave (...) effectively under complex circumstances, we endow them with special abilities permitting them to do so.Behavior exhibited by most members of a species is often accepted as inherited if all members were not likely to have been exposed to relevant ontogenic contingencies. When contingencies are not obvious, it is perhaps unwise to call any behavior either inherited or acquired, as the examples of churring in honey guides and following in imprinted ducklings show. Nor can the relative importance of phylogenic and ontogenic contingencies be argued from instances in which unlearned or learned behavior intrudes or dominates. Intrusions occur in both directions.Behavior influenced by its consequences seems directed toward the future, but only past effects are relevant. The mere fact that behavior is adaptive does not indicate whether phylogenic or ontogenic processes have been responsible for it. Examples include the several possible provenances of imitation, aggression, and communication. The generality of such concepts limits their usefulness. A more specific analysis is needed if we are to deal effectively with the two kinds of contingencies and their products. (shrink)

Human behavior is the joint product of (i) contingencies of survival responsible for natural selection, and (ii) contingencies of reinforcement responsible for the repertoires of individuals, including (iii) the special contingencies maintained by an evolved social environment. Selection by consequences is a causal mode found only in living things, or in machines made by living things. It was first recognized in natural selection: Reproduction, a first consequence, led to the evolution of cells, organs, and organisms reproducing themselves under increasingly diverse (...) conditions. The behavior functioned well, however, only under conditions similar to those under which it was selected.Reproduction under a wider range of consequences became possible with the evolution of processes through which organisms acquired behavior appropriate to novel environments. One of these, operant conditioning, is a second kind of selection by consequences: New responses could be strengthened by events which followed them. When the selecting consequences are the same, operant conditioning and natural selection work together redundantly. But because a species which quickly acquires behavior appropriate to an environment has less need for an innate repertoire, operant conditioning could replace as well as supplement the natural selection of behavior.Social behavior is within easy range of natural selection, because other members are one of the most stable features of the environment of a species. The human species presumably became more social when its vocal musculature came under operant control. Verbal behavior greatly increased the importance of a third kind of selection by consequences, the evolution of social environments or cultures. The effect on the group, and not the reinforcing consequences for individual members, is responsible for the evolution of culture. (shrink)

La discusión acerca de funciones es de larga data en filosofía. Normalmente se describe a la revolución científica del siglo XVII como eliminando las causas finales y la teleología de la física. Sin embargo, el lenguaje funcional cumple un papel central en ciertas áreas de la práctica biológica. Esto ha llevado a muchos filósofos a intentar elucidar el concepto de función, en algunos casos para defender la relevancia de estos usos, en otros para mostrar que se trata de meras formas (...) de hablar que podrían ser eliminadas sin pérdida de ningún tipo de información relevante. El objetivo principal de este trabajo es mostrar la necesidad de apelar a conceptos funcionales para una reconstrucción adecuada de la teoría de la selección natural darwiniana. Pues, se utiliza lenguaje funcional en la conceptualización del campo de aplicación de esta teoría, y tal campo debe ser determinable con independencia la teoría de la selección natural. (shrink)

A theory of consciousness is proposed which integrates much of what we know about the evolution and functioning of the human brammmd. The organism constructs its world of experience as an adaptation to the problem of moving in the world. The relationship between the observed and unobserved world is discussed. A cartography of state-bound meaning is described in which the continuum of arousal states is linked to different states of consciousness. The inevitable ambiguity of perception is addressed and the evolutionary (...) and developmental importance of self-awareness is emphasized. All of this is related to poststructuralist formulations. (shrink)

Recent studies demonstrated that 15-month-olds selectively respond to others’ beliefs. According to an epistemic mentalist interpretation, this attests that 15-month-olds possess a rudimentary capacity to attribute beliefs. Weaker interpretations suggest instead that infants are only sensitive to others’ beliefs because they can detect their proximal correlates. These two opposed interpretations often appeal to principled objections. In contrast, I argue that the dispute can be brought back to its empirical basis if we clearly explain what it means having ‘tacit’ or ‘implicit’ (...) knowledge of a theory. I introduce a definition of tacit knowledge based on the notion of structural similarity, and I discuss some crucial experiments that may be conducted to assess the validity of the epistemic mentalist interpretation. (shrink)

Several conditions for being an intrinsically intentional agent are put forward. On a first level of intentionality the agent has representations. Two kinds are described: cued and detached. An agent with both kinds is able to represent both what is prompted by the context and what is absent from it. An intermediate level of intentionality is achieved by having an inner world, that is, a coherent system of detached representations that model the world. The inner world is used, e.g., for (...) conditional and counterfactual thinking. Contextual or indexical representations are necessary in order that the inner world relates to the actual external world and thus can be used as a basis for action. To have full-blown intentionality, the agent should also have a detached self-awareness, that is, be able to entertain self-representations that are independent of the context. (shrink)

Abstract ?Theory of Mind? (ToM) is widely held to be ubiquitous in our navigation of the social world. Recently this standard view has been contested by phenomenologists and enactivists. Proponents of the ubiquity of ToM, however, accept and effectively neutralize the intuitions behind their arguments by arguing that ToM is mostly sub-personal. This paper proposes a similar move on behalf of the phenomenologists and enactivists: it offers a novel explanation of the intuition that ToM is ubiquitous that is compatible with (...) the rejection of this ubiquity. According to this explanation, we use ToM-talk primarily to model and thereby reconstruct non-mentalizing social-cognitive processes in order to explain our assessment of the behaviour of others. The intuition that ToM is ubiquitous is the result of mistaking the model for the real thing. This explanation is argued to be more complete than the ?ToM-ist? explanation of the intuition that ToM is not ubiquitous. (shrink)

This essay presents a philosophical and computational theory of the representation of de re, de dicto, nested, and quasi-indexical belief reports expressed in natural language. The propositional Semantic Network Processing System (SNePS) is used for representing and reasoning about these reports. In particular, quasi-indicators (indexical expressions occurring in intentional contexts and representing uses of indicators by another speaker) pose problems for natural-language representation and reasoning systems, because--unlike pure indicators--they cannot be replaced by coreferential NPs without changing the meaning of the (...) embedding sentence. Therefore, the referent of the quasi-indicator must be represented in such a way that no invalid coreferential claims are entailed. The importance of quasi-indicators is discussed, and it is shown that all four of the above categories of belief reports can be handled by a single representational technique using belief spaces containing intensional entities. Inference rules and belief-revision techniques for the system are also examined. (shrink)