COMPARATIVE COGNITION:

Abstract— Human and nonhuman animals alike must adjust to complex and ever-changing circumstances if they are to survive and reproduce. Advanced neural mechanisms enable animals to remember the past, to act in the present, and to plan for the future. Exploring the species generality of cognitive processes in behavior is central to the field of comparative cognition. A comparative perspective may not only broaden but also deepen our understanding of cognition—both in human and in nonhuman animals.     

EMBODIED COGNITION AND RELIGION

It is argued that there are good scientific grounds for accepting that cognition functions in a way that reflects embodiment. This represents a more holistic, systemic way of thinking about human beings, and contributes to the coordination of scientific assumptions about mind and body with those of the faith traditions, moving us beyond sterile debates about reductionism. It has been claimed by Francisco Varela and others that there is an affinity between Buddhism and embodied cognition, though it is argued here that they are less closely aligned than is sometimes assumed. Embodied cognition also accords well with the holistic strand of thinking about human nature in Judeo‐Christian thinking. While accepting the persuasiveness of the general case for cognition being embodied it is suggested here that some forms of cognition are more embodied than others, and that it may be one of the distinctive features of humans that they have developed a capacity for relatively nonembodied forms of cognition.     

社会认知中印象形成的记忆和认知表征研究

本文以社会认知为出发点,考察印象形成记忆和认知表征;采用具体行为描述作为刺激材料,通过三个实验,160名被试,系统考察了印象形成中行为信息加工的方式。结果表明：（1）印象形成过程中,我们对行为信息进行精致加工编码,行为信息与品质相关,但它们是独立存贮在记忆中;（2）项目增加和项目丢失技术是区别精致加工和组织加工的有效工具。     

FROM EMBODIED TO EXTENDED COGNITION

Embodied cognitive science holds that cognitive processes are deeply and inescapably rooted in our bodily interactions with the world. Our finite, contingent, and mortal embodiment may be not only supportive, but in some cases even constitutive of emotions, thoughts, and experiences. My discussion here will work outward from the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of the brain to a nervous system which extends to the boundaries of the body. It will extend to nonneural aspects of embodiment and even beyond the boundaries of the body to prosthetics of various kinds, including symbioses with a broad array of cultural artifacts, our symbolic niche, and our relationships with other embodied human beings. While cognition may not always be situated, its origins are embedded in temporally and spatially limited activities. Cognitive work also can be off‐loaded to the body and to the environment in service of action, tool use, group cognition, and social coordination. This can blur the boundaries between brain areas, brain and body, and body and environment, transforming our understanding of mind and personhood to provide a different grounding for faith traditions in general, and of the historically dualist Christian tradition in particular.     

TWO ISSUES IN AUDITORY COGNITION:

Abstract— The study of auditory and music cognition provides opportunities to explore general cognitive mechanisms in a specific, highly structured domain We discuss two problems with implications for other domains of perception the self-organization of perceptual categories and invariant pattern recognition The perceptual category we consider is the octave We show how general principles of self-organization operating on a cochlear spectral representation can vield octave categories The example of invariant pattern recognition we consider is the recognition of invariant frequency patterns transformed to different absolute frequencies We suggest a system that uses pitch or musical key to map tones into a pitch-invariant format.     

DEWEY ON EXTENDED COGNITION AND EPISTEMOLOGY

There is a surge of attempts to draw out the epistemological consequences of views according to which cognition is deeply embedded, embodied and/or extended (e‐cog). The principal machinery used for doing so is that of analytic epistemology. Here I argue that Dewey's pragmatic epistemology may be better fit to the task. I start by pointing out the profound similarities between Dewey's view on cognition and that emerging from literature of more recent date. Crucially, the benefit of looking at Dewey is that Dewey, unlike contemporary writers, also devises a corresponding epistemology. I then identify two senses in which contemporary analytic epistemology conflicts with e‐cog—concluding from that the superiority of the Deweyian framework, at least as it concerns accommodating e‐cog.     

EMBODIED COGNITION IN CLASSICAL RABBINIC LITERATURE

Challenging earlier cognitivist approaches, recent theories of embodied cognition argue that the human mind and its functions are best understood as intimately bound up with the human body and its physiological dimensions. Some scholars have suggested that such theories, in departing from some core assumptions of the Western philosophical tradition, display significant similarities to certain non‐Western traditions of thought, such as Buddhism. This essay extends such parallels to the Jewish tradition and argues that, in particular, classical rabbinic thought presents a profoundly nondualistic account of the body–soul relation in its connection to cognition, action, and embodiment. Classical rabbinic texts therefore model the possibility of engaging with ‘Western’ conceptions such as God and the soul, while doing so in a manner that resonates strongly with many aspects of contemporary scientific theories. Thus, beyond their value as historical documents, insight into the texts and concepts of classical rabbinic Judaism can contribute to the further development of new theories of intellect and cognition.     

THE EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF COGNITION IN ANIMALS

Abstract— The origins and current status of comparative cognitive psychology are examined. Great strides have been made in the last 20 years, but two problems are identified as obstacles to future progress. One is the very limited number of species studied by comparative cognitive psychologists. The second is the conflict between the increasing use of complex stimulus discriminations and the need for precise stimulus control in animal experiments. An expanded examination of more species as selected by phylogenetic and ecological considerations and an unwavering demand for the experimental identification of the controlling features of complex discriminations are suggested as solutions to these difficulties.     

“攻击性行为”社会认知的实验研究

采用两种不同的方法对人类“攻击性行为”社会认知的某些特点进行探索。结果表明：①再认过程中,被试对被攻击者的辨别率（Ａ＇）明显高于攻击者,Ｂ″也具有明显特征。证明人类的外显记忆更多倾向记忆“灾难现象”。②偏好测试中,被试偏好攻击者明显多于被攻击者。证实了“攻击性行为”社会认知实验性分离的存在。也就是说学习攻击性图片在人类记忆中,产生了“攻击性行为”社会认知的启动效应。同时也证实了内隐与外显记忆之间存在任务分离的加工演变过程。③偏好测试中出现被试对陌生人（中性人物）的偏好率明显高于攻击与被攻击者的总和。我们认为这是间接启动效应,是外显记忆和内隐记忆在选择上发生冲突继而导致倾向一致的结果。     

EMBODIED COGNITION,CHARACTER FORMATION,AND VIRTUE

The theory of embodied cognition makes the claim that our cognitive processes are, at their core, sensorimotor, situated, and action‐relevant. Our mental system is built primarily to control action, and so mind is formed by the nature of the body and its interactions with the world. In this paper we will explore the nature of virtue and its formation from the perspective of embodied cognition. We specifically describe exemplars of the virtue of compassion (caregivers of individuals with developmental disabilities in L'Arche communities), speculating as to what might have been the formative influences in their character development. Embodied formation is understood in the context of the openness of human cortical systems to formation by social interactions, and in terms of the openness to reorganization and change of complex dynamical systems. Specific formative influences explored include interpersonal imitation, social attachment, language, and story.     

INTELLIGENCE TESTING,COGNITION, AND INSTRUCTION*

This paper examines the implications of recent theory and research in cognitive psychology for the understanding and assessment of intelligence. Three major themes are developed. The first has to do with how changes in the social and educational climate for testing can influence the conception of intellectual competence and the technology of testing. The second theme concerns the ways that cognitive psychology, with its emphases on memory, problem-solving, and knowledge acquisition, has begun to provide a new framework for viewing differences in intellectual functioning. Finally, it is argued that study of the kinds of performances required for success in school suggests ways in which intelligence testing can be made more responsive to current social and educational needs.     

幼儿对数的认知及其策略

该研究探查幼儿对基数、数序、运算和解应用题的认知发展过程及其认知策略。着重探查（1）不同认知任务对幼儿数认知发展的影响;（2）幼儿对基数和数序两者认知发展的顺序;（3）从幼儿主动解决问题的策略探究其认知发展水平。该研究采用定性和定量相结合的研究方法。被试为4、5、6岁城市幼儿园儿童,共92人,男女约各半。全部实验以个别方式进行。主要研究结果表明（1）幼儿对基数、数序、运算和解应用题的认知成绩均有随年龄发展的趋势,但快速发展的年龄阶段因任务的难度而异;（2）幼儿对基数和数序的认知在4—5岁显示出不同步的发展,对基数的认知成绩优于对数序的认知,而到6岁两者具有同步发展的趋势;（3）幼儿解决问题的策略水平随年龄发展,显示了由外化水平的智力活动向完全内化的智力操作的发展过程,并具有明显的层次性。该研究结果为幼儿数能力的培养和促进提供参考依据。     

JFGI: FROM DISTRIBUTED COGNITION TO DISTRIBUTED RELIABILISM*

While, prima facie, virtue/credit approaches in epistemology would appear to be in tension with distributed/extended approaches in cognitive science, Pritchard ( 2010 ) has recently argued that the tension here is only apparent, at least given a weak version of distributed cognition, which claims merely that external resources often make critical contributions to the formation of true belief, and a weak virtue theory, which claims merely that, whenever a subject achieves knowledge, his cognitive agency makes a significant contribution to the formation of a true belief. But the significance of the role played by the subject's cognitive agency in distributed cognitive systems is in fact highly variable: at one extreme, formation of a true belief seems clearly to be significantly creditable to the subject's agency; at the other extreme, however, the subject's agency plays such a peripheral role that it is at best unclear whether it should receive significant credit for formation of a true belief. The compatibility of distributed cognition and virtue epistemology thus turns on what it takes for a contribution to the formation of true belief to count as significant. This article argues that the inevitable vagueness of this notion suggests retreating from virtue epistemology to a form of process reliabilism and explores the prospects for a distributed reliabilist epistemology designed to fit smoothly with distributed cognition. In effect, distributed reliabilism radicalizes Goldberg's recent extended reliabilist view (Goldberg 2010 ) by allowing the process the reliability of which determines the epistemic status of a subject's belief to extend to include not only processing performed by other subjects but also processing performed by non‐human technological resources.     

THE ROLE OF COGNITION AND FEELING IN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE

Abstract Inquiry into religious experience is informed by conceptualizations of emotion. Although a long history of theoretical and empirical work has provided considerable insight into the philosophical, psychological, and (more recently) neurobiological structure of emotion, the role of cognition and feeling in religious emotional states remains poorly conceived, and, hence, so does the concept of religious experience. The lack of a clear understanding of the role of emotion in religious experience is a consequence of a lack of an adequate interdisciplinary account of emotions. Our primary aim here is to examine the consequences of a properly interdisciplinary understanding of emotions for the analysis of religious experience. To this end, we note points of convergence between psychological, philosophical, and neuroscientific accounts of emotion and between such accounts and reports on the neurobiology of religious experience, in particular two recent human brain imaging studies. We conclude that emotions are richer phenomena than either pure feeling or pure thought and that, rightly understood, emotion affords religious experience its distinctive content and quality. Accordingly, we argue that religious experience cannot be reduced to pure feeling or pure thought. Rather, on our analysis, religious experience emerges as “thinking that feels like something.”     

MIND UPLOADING AND EMBODIED COGNITION: A THEOLOGICAL RESPONSE

One of the more radical transhumanist proposals for future human being envisions the uploading of our minds to a digital substrate, trading our dependence on frail, degenerating “meat” bodies for the immortality of software existence. Yet metaphor studies indicate that our use of metaphor operates in our bodily inhabiting of the world, and a phenomenological approach emphasizes a “hybridity” to human being that resists traditional mind/body dichotomies. Future scenarios envisioning mind uploading and disembodied artificial intelligence (AI) share an apocalyptic category with more traditional religious eschatologies, though they differ markedly in content; therefore, the insights of embodied cognition and their uptake in technological innovation are considered as they apply to theological concerns. Theology often functions in debates over the technological future to critique or to caution. However, theologians may learn from their technological dialogue partners when it comes to the future of embodiment and its implications for the construction and practice of theology.