In informal terms, abductive reasoning involves inferring the best or most plausible explanation from a given set of facts or data. It is a common occurrence in everyday life and crops up in such diverse places as medical diagnosis, scientific theory formation, accident investigation, language understanding, and jury deliberation. In recent years, it has become a popular and fruitful topic in artificial intelligence research. This volume breaks new ground in the scientific, philosophical, and technological study of abduction. It presents new (...) ideas about inferential and information-processing foundations for knowledge and certainty. The authors argue that knowledge arises from experience by processes of abductive inference, in contrast to the view that it arises non-inferentially, or that deduction and inductive generalization are enough to account for knowledge. Much AI research is hypothetical, so the importance of this book is that it reports key discoveries about abduction that have been made as a result of designing, building, testing, and analyzing actual working knowledge-based systems for medical diagnosis and other abductive tasks. The book tells the story of six generations of increasingly sophisticated generic abduction machines, RED-1, RED-2, PEIRCE, MDX2, TIPS, QUAWDS, and the discovery of reasoning strategies that make it computationally feasible to form well-justified composite explanatory hypotheses, despite the threat of combinatorial explosion. The final chapter argues that perception is logically abductive and presents a layered-abduction computational model of perceptual information processing. This book will be of great interest to researchers in AI, cognitive science, and philosophy of science. (shrink)

The Cognitive Basis of Science concerns the question 'What makes science possible?' Specifically, what features of the human mind and of human culture and cognitive development permit and facilitate the conduct of science? The essays in this volume address these questions, which are inherently interdisciplinary, requiring co-operation between philosophers, psychologists, and others in the social and cognitive sciences. They concern the cognitive, social, and motivational underpinnings of scientific reasoning in children and lay persons as well as in professional scientists. The (...) editors' introduction lays out the background to the debates, and the volume includes a consolidated bibliography that will be a valuable reference resource for all those interested in this area. The volume will be of great importance to all researchers and students interested in the philosophy or psychology of scientific reasoning, as well as those, more generally, who are interested in the nature of the human mind. (shrink)

Six characteristics of effective representational systems for conceptual learning in complex domains have been identified. Such representations should: (1) integrate levels of abstraction; (2) combine globally homogeneous with locally heterogeneous representation of concepts; (3) integrate alternative perspectives of the domain; (4) support malleable manipulation of expressions; (5) possess compact procedures; and (6) have uniform procedures. The characteristics were discovered by analysing and evaluating a novel diagrammatic representation that has been invented to support students' comprehension of electricity—AVOW diagrams (Amps, Volts, Ohms, (...) Watts). A task analysis is presented that demonstrates that problem solving using a conventional algebraic approach demands more effort than AVOW diagrams. In an experiment comparing two groups of learners using the alternative approaches, the group using AVOW diagrams learned more than the group using equations and were better able to solve complex transfer problems and questions involving multiple constraints. Analysis of verbal protocols and work scratchings showed that the AVOW diagram group, in contrast to the equations group, acquired a coherently organised network of concepts, learnt effective problem solving procedures, and experienced more positive learning events. The six principles of effective representations were proposed on the basis of these findings. AVOW diagrams are Law Encoding Diagrams, a general class of representations that have been shown to support learning in other scientific domains. (shrink)

Six characteristics of effective representational systems for conceptual learning in complex domains have been identified. Such representations should: (1) integrate levels of abstraction; (2) combine globally homogeneous with locally heterogeneous representation of concepts; (3) integrate alternative perspectives of the domain; (4) support malleable manipulation of expressions; (5) possess compact procedures; and (6) have uniform procedures. The characteristics were discovered by analysing and evaluating a novel diagrammatic representation that has been invented to support students' comprehension of electricity—AVOW diagrams (Amps, Volts, Ohms, (...) Watts). A task analysis is presented that demonstrates that problem solving using a conventional algebraic approach demands more effort than AVOW diagrams. In an experiment comparing two groups of learners using the alternative approaches, the group using AVOW diagrams learned more than the group using equations and were better able to solve complex transfer problems and questions involving multiple constraints. Analysis of verbal protocols and work scratchings showed that the AVOW diagram group, in contrast to the equations group, acquired a coherently organised network of concepts, learnt effective problem solving procedures, and experienced more positive learning events. The six principles of effective representations were proposed on the basis of these findings. AVOW diagrams are Law Encoding Diagrams, a general class of representations that have been shown to support learning in other scientific domains. (shrink)

For historical epistemology to succeed, it must adopt a defensible set of categories to characterise scientific activity over time. In historically orientated philosophy of science during the twentieth century, the original categories of theory and observation were supplemented or replaced by categories like paradigm, research program and research tradition. Underlying all three proposals was talk about conceptual systems and conceptual structures, attributed to individual scientists or to research communities, however there has been little general agreement on the nature of these (...) structures. Recent experimental research in cognitive science has considerably refined the theory of concepts. Drawing upon the results of that research, philosophers can construct more concrete and empirically defensible representations of conceptual systems. I will suggest that this research supports a modest and useful sense of both normal and revolutionary science, not as epistemological continuities or discontinuities, but as particular patterns of conceptual change. (shrink)

Western philosophers have traditionally concentrated on theory as the means for expressing knowledge about a variety of phenomena. This absorbing book challenges this fundamental notion by showing how objects themselves, specifically scientific instruments, can express knowledge. As he considers numerous intriguing examples, Davis Baird gives us the tools to "read" the material products of science and technology and to understand their place in culture. Making a provocative and original challenge to our conception of knowledge itself, _Thing Knowledge _demands that we (...) take a new look at theories of science and technology, knowledge, progress, and change. Baird considers a wide range of instruments, including Faraday's first electric motor, eighteenth-century mechanical models of the solar system, the cyclotron, various instruments developed by analytical chemists between 1930 and 1960, spectrometers, and more. (shrink)

Much of cognitive psychology focuses on effects measured in tens of milliseconds while significant educational outcomes take tens of hours to achieve. The task of bridging this gap is analyzed in terms of Newell's (1990) bands of cognition—the Biological, Cognitive, Rational, and Social Bands. The 10 millisecond effects reside in his Biological Band while the significant learning outcomes reside in his Social Band. The paper assesses three theses: The Decomposition Thesis claims that learning occurring at the Social Band can be (...) reduced to learning occurring at lower bands. The Relevance Thesis claims that instructional outcomes at the Social Band can be improved by paying attention to cognition at the lower bands. The Modeling Thesis claims that cognitive modeling provides a basis for bridging between events on the small scale and desired outcomes on the large scale. The unit-task level, at the boundary of the Cognitive and Rational Bands, is useful for assessing these theses. There is good evidence for all three theses in efforts that bridge from the unit-task level to educational applications. While there is evidence for the Decomposition Thesis all the way down to the 10 millisecond level, more work needs to be done to establish the Relevance Thesis and particularly the Modeling Thesis at the lower levels. (shrink)

This paper reports a psychological study of human categorization that looked at the procedures used by expert scientists when dealing with puzzling items. Five professional botanists were asked to specify a category from a set of positive and negative instances. The target category in the study was defined by a feature that was unusual, hence situations of uncertainty and puzzlement were generated. Subjects were asked to think aloud while solving the tasks, and their verbal reports were analyzed. A number of (...) problem solving strategies were identified, and subsequently integrated in a model of knowledge‐guided inductive categorization. Our model proposes that expert knowledge influences the subjects' reasoning in more complex ways than suggested by earlier investigations of scientific reasoning. As in previous studies, domain knowledge influenced our subjects' hypothesis generation and testing; but, additionally, it played a central role when subjects revised their hypotheses. (shrink)

In cognitive neuroscience, functional magnetic resonance imaging is used to produce images of brain functions. These images play a central role in the practice of neuroscience. In this paper we are interested in how these brain images become understandable and meaningful for scientists. In order to explore this problem we observe how scientists use such semiotic resources as gesture, language, and material structure present in the socially and culturally constituted environment. A micro-analysis of video records of scientists interacting with each (...) other and with fMRI images reveals action as cognition, that is, actions that constitute thinking for the scientists. (shrink)

The present paper attempts to define an experimental ethnography as an approach to the understanding of scientific thinking. Such an ethnography relies upon the replication of contemporary and historical scientific practices as a means of capturing the cultural and cognitive meanings of the practices in question. The approach is contrasted to the typical kind of laboratory experiment in psychology, and it is argued that replications of scientific practices can reveal dimensions of the microstructure of science and of its context that (...) otherwise may remain invisible. An extended example is presented, based upon replications of the experimental procedures used by Michael Faraday in 1856 during his examination of the optical properties of gold. (shrink)

The important role of mathematical representations in scientific thinking has received little attention from cognitive scientists. This study argues that neglect of this issue is unwarranted, given existing cognitive theories and laws, together with promising results from the cognitive historical analysis of several important scientists. In particular, while the mathematical wizardry of James Clerk Maxwell differed dramatically from the experimental approaches favored by Michael Faraday, Maxwell himself recognized Faraday as “in reality a mathematician of a very high order,” and his (...) own work as in some respects a re‐representation of Faraday’s field theory in analytic terms. The implications of the similarities and differences between the two figures open new perspectives on the cognitive role of mathematics as a learned mode of representation in science. (shrink)

Graphing has long counted as one of the quintessential process skills that scientists apply independently of particular situations. However, recent expert/expert studies showed that when asked to interpret graphs culled from undergraduate courses of their own disciplines, scientists were far from perfect in providing interpretations that a course instructor would have accepted as correct. Drawing on five years of fieldwork, the present study was designed to investigate graphs and graph-related skills in scientific research. In addition to the fieldwork, a think-aloud (...) protocol was used to elicit scientists' graph interpretations both on familiar and unfamiliar graphs. The analyses show that graph-related skills such as perceiving relevant graphical detail and interpreting the source of this detail emerge in the research process and are related to the scientists' increasing familiarity with a research object, instrumentation, and their understanding of the transformation process that turns raw data into graphs. When scientists do not know the natural object represented in a graph and are unfamiliar with the details of the corresponding data collection protocol, they often focus on graphical features that do not pertain to the phenomenon represented and therefore do not arrive at the correct interpretations. Based on these data, it is proposed that graphs are not only the outcomes of scientific research but also, in important ways, constitute representations that bear metonymic relations to the research context, most importantly to instrumentation, natural phenomenon, and the mathematical transformations used to produce the graphs from the raw data. I draw on the semantics of symbolic systems for articulating competencies and breakdowns in scientists' graphing-related practices. (shrink)

How do novel scientific concepts arise? In Creating Scientific Concepts, Nancy Nersessian seeks to answer this central but virtually unasked question in the problem of conceptual change. She argues that the popular image of novel concepts and profound insight bursting forth in a blinding flash of inspiration is mistaken. Instead, novel concepts are shown to arise out of the interplay of three factors: an attempt to solve specific problems; the use of conceptual, analytical, and material resources provided by the cognitive-social-cultural (...) context of the problem; and dynamic processes of reasoning that extend ordinary cognition. Focusing on the third factor, Nersessian draws on cognitive science research and historical accounts of scientific practices to show how scientific and ordinary cognition lie on a continuum, and how problem-solving practices in one illuminate practices in the other. (shrink)

I outline a pragmatic view of scientists' use of observation which draws attention to non-discursive, instrumental and social contexts of observation, in order to explain scientists' agreement about the appearance and significance of new phenomena. I argue that: observation is embedded in a network of activities, techniques, and interests; that experimentalists make construals of new phenomena which enable them communicate exploratory techniques and their outcomes, and that empirical enquiry consists of communicative, exploratory and predictive strategies whose interdependence ensures that, notwithstanding (...) the constructedness of representations and the empirical underdetermination of theories, observations contain information about the natural world. (shrink)

: Faraday is often described as an experimentalist, but his work is a dialectical interplay of concrete objects, visual images, abstract, theoretically-informed visual models and metaphysical precepts. From phenomena described in terms of patterns formed by lines of force he created a general explanation of space-filling systems of force which obey both empirical laws and principles of conservation and economy. I argue that Faraday's articulation of situated experience via visual models into a theory capable of verbal expression owed much to (...) his strategy of moving—via conjectural visual models—between the phenomenology of particulars (often displayed as patterns) and the general features of dynamical phenomena which he depicted as structures. (shrink)

This paper presents a study of the generation, manipulation and use of visual representations in different episodes of scientific discovery. The study identifies a common set of transformations of visual representations underlying the distinctive methods and imagery of different scientific fields. The existence of common features behind the diversity of visual representations suggests a common dynamical structure for visual thinking, showing how visual representations facilitate cognitive processes such as pattern-matching and visual inference through the use of tools, technologies and other (...) cultural resources. This dynamical model suggests a way of theorizing the interaction of cognitive, socio-cultural and technological aspects of science without losing sight of the essential contribution each makes to the processes of discovery. Whereas scientific work is often construed epistemically, as having the aim of improving the fit between theories and phenomena or culturally given notions of what counts as reality, this study shows that scientists use transformations to modify visual representations in ways that achieve other kinds of match: between a representation and the cognitive demands of a task or between an emerging representation and the social need to communicate and negotiate new meanings in a context of culturally embedded conventions. By showing how images connect each of the overlapping contexts of scientific work the proposed model negotiates the sometimes contested boundary between cognitive and social aspects of science. (shrink)

... the topic of 'meaning' is the one topic discussed in philosophy in which there is literally nothing but 'theory' - literally nothing that can be labelled or even ridiculed as the 'common sense view'. Putnam, 'The Meaning of Meaning' This book explores some truths behind the truism that experimentation is a hallmark of scientific activity. Scientists' descriptions of nature result from two sorts of encounter: they interact with each other and with nature. Philosophy of science has, by and large, (...) failed to give an account of either sort of interaction. Philosophers typically imagine that scientists observe, theorize and experiment in order to produce general knowledge of natural laws, knowledge which can be applied to generate new theories and technologies. This view bifurcates the scientist's world into an empirical world of pre-articulate experience and know how and another world of talk, thought and argument. Most received philosophies of science focus so exclusively on the literary world of representations that they cannot begin to address the philosophical problems arising from the interaction of these worlds: empirical access as a source of knowledge, meaning and reference, and of course, realism. This has placed the epistemological burden entirely on the predictive role of experiment because, it is argued, testing predictions is all that could show that scientists' theorizing is constrained by nature. Here a purely literary approach contributes to its own demise. The epistemological significance of experiment turns out to be a theoretical matter: cruciality depends on argument, not experiment. (shrink)

In this book, Newell makes the case for unified theories by setting forth a candidate.

This book describes empirically ways to analyze and then to effectually utilize cognitive processes to advance discovery and invention in the sciences. It also explains how to teach these principles to students.

Chapter 1 FROM ORDER TO DISORDER 5 mins. John enters and goes into his office. He says something very quickly about having made a bad mistake. He had sent the review of a paper. . . . The rest of the sentence is inaudible. 5 mins.

Hutchins examines a set of phenomena that have fallen between the established disciplines of psychology and anthropology, bringing to light a new set of relationships between culture and cognition.

Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions became the most widely read book about science in the twentieth century. His terms 'paradigm' and 'scientific revolution' entered everyday speech, but they remain controversial. In the second half of the twentieth century, the new field of cognitive science combined empirical psychology, computer science, and neuroscience. In this book, the theories of concepts developed by cognitive scientists are used to evaluate and extend Kuhn's most influential ideas. Based on case studies of the Copernican revolution, (...) the discovery of nuclear fission, and an elaboration of Kuhn's famous 'ducks and geese' example of concept learning, this volume, first published in 2006, offers accounts of the nature of normal and revolutionary science, the function of anomalies, and the nature of incommensurability. (shrink)

I outline a pragmatic view of scientists' use of observation which draws attention to non-discursive, instrumental and social contexts of observation, in order to explain scientists' agreement about the appearance and significance of new phenomena. I argue that: observation is embedded in a network of activities, techniques, and interests; that experimentalists make construals of new phenomena which enable them communicate exploratory techniques and their outcomes, and that empirical enquiry consists of communicative, exploratory and predictive strategies whose interdependence ensures that, notwithstanding (...) the constructedness of representations and the empirical underdetermination of theories, observations contain information about the natural world. (shrink)

This chapter examines the extent to which there are continuities between the cognitive processes and epistemic practices engaged in by human hunter-gatherers, on the one hand, and those which are distinctive of science, on the other. It deploys anthropological evidence against any form of 'no-continuity' view, drawing especially on the cognitive skills involved in the art of tracking. It also argues against the 'child-as-scientist' accounts put forward by some developmental psychologists, which imply that scientific thinking is present in early infancy (...) and universal amongst humans who have sufficient time and resources to devote to it. In contrast, a modularist kind of 'continuity' account is proposed, according to which the innately channelled architecture of human cognition provides all the materials necessary for basic forms of scientific reasoning in older children and adults, needing only the appropriate sorts of external support, social context, and background beliefs and skills in order for science to begin its advance. (shrink)

Among the many contested boundaries in science studies is that between the cognitive and the social. Here, we are concerned to question this boundary from a perspective within the cognitive sciences based on the notion of distributed cognition. We first present two of many contemporary sources of the notion of distributed cognition, one from the study of artificial neural networks and one from cognitive anthropology. We then proceed to reinterpret two well-known essays by Bruno Latour, ‘Visualization and Cognition: Thinking with (...) Eyes and Hands’ and ‘Circulating Reference: Sampling the Soil in the Amazon Forest’. In both cases we find the cognitive and the social merged in a system of distributed cognition without any appeal to agonistic encounters. For us, results do not come to be regarded as veridical because they are widely accepted; they come to be widely accepted because, in the context of an appropriate distributed cognitive system, their apparent veracity can be made evident to anyone with the capacity to understand the workings of the system. (shrink)