Monday, July 6, 2020

The term "cognitive science" was coined in 1973 by Christopher Longuet-Higgins

it was coined in a report on the state of AI research commissioned by the UK Science Research Council (SRC) in 1973. The report was prepared by Sir James Lighthill and is known simply as the Lighthill Report. Christopher Longuet-Higgins added a long comment in which he coined the phrase "cognitive science". Here's the immediate context of the coinage:
It is now plain that a central problem in cognitive psychology is to understand how our knowledge is represented and deployed, and the computer program is the only medium which at present offers us the possibility of formulating adequately sophisticated theories of cognition. The elimination of inadequate theories is no longer the main problem; the defects of a programmed theory become immediately apparent as soon as it is run on a computer.

In short whatever the technological prospects of artificial intelligence, its principal scientific value, in my view, is that it sets new standards of precision and detail in the formulation of models of cognitive processes, these models being open to direct and immediate test.

The question What science or sciences are likely to be enriched by artificial intelligence studies? can now receive a provisional answer, namely All those sciences which are directly relevant to human thought and perception. These cognitive sciences may be roughly grouped under four main headings:
  1. Mathematical - including formal logic, the theory of programs and programming languages, the mathematical theory of classification and of complex data structures.
  2. Linguistic - including semantics, syntax, phonology and phonetics.
  3. Psychological - including the psychology of vision, hearing and touch, and
  4. Physiological - including sensory physiology and the detailed study of the various organs of the brain.
Perhaps cognitive science in the singular would be preferable to the plural form, in view of the ultimate impossibility of viewing any of these subjects in isolation. Indeed artificial intelligence studies are beginning to offer interesting suggestions as to how our various modes of experience might be logically related.

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