All the above approaches tend to be generalized to the form of integrated computational models of a syntheticabstract intelligence in order to be applied to the explanation and improvement of individual and socialorganizational decisionmaking. Neurobiological methods Research methods borrowed directly from neuroscience and neuropsychology can also help us to understand aspects of intlligence. These methods allow us to understand how intelligent behavior is implemented in a physical system. Singlecell recording Direct brain stimulation Animal models Postmortem studies Key findings Cognitive science has much to its credit. Among other accomplishments it has given rise to models of human cognitive bias and risk perception and has been influential in the development of behavioral finance part of economics. It has also given rise to a new theory of the philosophy of mathematics and many theories of artificial intelligence persuasion and coercion. It has made its presence firmly known in the philosophy of language and epistemology a modern revival of rationalism as well as constituting a substantial wing of modern linguistics.
Criticisms
The philosophical underpinnings of research in cognitive science have been continually criticized by philosophers and scientists alike. See Functionalism psychology for an extended entry on this.
Notable researchers
See also List of cognitive scientists
Some of the more recognized names in cognitive science are usually either the most controversial or the most cited. Within philosophy familiar names include Daniel Dennett who writes from a computational systems perspective John Searle known for his controversial Chinese Room Jerry Fodor who advocates functionalism and Douglas Hofstadter. Hofstadter famous for writing G�del Escher Bach which questions the nature of words and thought is Director of the Fluid Analogies Research Group of the Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition at Indiana University. In the realm of linguistics Noam Chomsky and George Lakoff have been influential. In Artificial intelligence Marvin Minsky and Kevin Warwick are prominent. Popular names in the discipline of psychology include James McClelland and Steven Pinker.
Cognitive bias
A cognitive bias is any of a wide range of observer effects identified in cognitive science and social psychology including very basic statistical social attribution and memory errors that are common to all human beings. Biases drastically skew the reliability of anecdotal and legal evidence. Bias arises from various life loyalty and local risk and attention concerns that are difficult to separate or codify. Much of the present scientific understanding of biases stems from the work of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman and their colleagues whose experiments demonstrated distinct and replicable ways in which human judgment and decisionmaking differ from rational choice theory. This led to Tversky and Kahneman developing prospect theory as an alternative. Tversky and Kahneman claim that the biases they identified are at least partially the result of problemsolving using mental shortcuts or heuristics for instance using how readily or vividly something comes to mind as an indication of how often or how recently it was encountered the availability heuristic. Other biases have been demonstrated in separate experiments such as the Confirmation bias demonstrated by Peter C. Wason.
Some scientists
Some scientists have questioned whether all of the biases are in fact errors. David Funder and Joachim Krueger have argued that some so called biases may in fact be approximation shortcuts which aid humans in making predictions when information is in short supply. For the false consensus effect may be viewed as a reasonable estimation based on a single known data point your own opinion instead of a false belief that other people agree with you.
Types of cognitive biases
Biases can be distinguished on a number of dimensions. For there are biases specific to groups such as the Risky shift as well as biases at the individual level. Some biases affect decisionmaking where the desirability of options has to be considered . Sunk Cost fallacy. Others such as Illusory correlation affect judgement of how likely something is or of whether one thing is the cause of another. A distinctive class of biases affect memory Schacter such as consistency bias remembering ones past attitudes and behaviour as more similar to ones present attitudes. Some biases reflect a subjects motivation Kunda for the desire for a positive selfimage leading to Egocentric bias Hoorens and the avoidance of unpleasant cognitive dissonance. Other biases are due to the particular way the brain perceives forms memories and makes judgements. This distinction is sometimes described as Hot cognition versus Cold Cognition as motivated cognition can involve a state of arousal. Among the cold biases some are due to ignoring relevant information . Neglect of probability whereas some involve a decision or judgement being affected by irrelevant information for the Framing effect where the exact same problem receives different responses depending on how it is described or giving excessive weight to an unimportant but salient feature of the problem . Anchoring.
The fact
The fact that some biases reflect motivation and in particular the motivation to have positive attitudes to oneself Hoorens accounts for the fact that many biases are selfserving or selfdirected . Illusion of asymmetric insight Selfserving bias Projection bias. There are also biases in how subjects evaluate ingroups or outgroups evaluating ingroups as more diverse and better in many respects even when those groups are arbitrarilydefined Ingroup bias Outgroup homogeneity bias. The following is a list of the more commonly studied cognitive biases.
For other noted biases see list of cognitive biases. Anchoring on a past reference. Framing by using a too narrow approach and description of the situation or issue.
