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Last updated 6Jan2003

Cognitive science Reading suggestions

The text that describes my model does not contain references, because the relevant references are all the data that we have about human behavior and about the human brain. Even if a very restricted definition of the term 'data' is used (e.g only controlled experiments) this is far too much. This leaves two options:

• Include some of the references.
• Don't include any references.

The problem with the first option, (apart from requiring more work and making the text larger), is that it introduce a bias towards consideration of the included references, and ignoring others. This is bad, because I don't think any reference is more important than others. In fact, I believe one of the major failures of many other models is that they concentrate on explaining some data, and ignore the rest. A model of human cognition has to explain (be compatible with) all the data about human cognition.

Instead of listing references, I invite the reader to pick up what he/she thinks the most important data, and see if it is compatible with the model. This relies on the user knowing enough about cognitive psychology, neurobiology and related areas to find the data himself/herself.

For readers that feel less safe in any of these areas, here are my recommendations of the right approach for further reading. These relies on the reader to be ready to put significant amount of effort in the subject.

• General
  The best source for newcomers are undergraduate textbooks, simply because they are written for newcomers. These are supposed to give a relatively easy, comprehensive and unbiased introduction.

• Neurobiology and brain anatomy
  Textbooks on these subjects are in general reasonable, but there is too much knowledge to present, and too little rules to summarize them, to be covered properly by a reasonable size book. As a result, the coverage in each book is incomplete, and is biased by the views of the author(s). I would therefore recommend that you read at least two textbooks in each area, and pay attention to the differences between them.

  [18Feb2002] The reasonability of textbooks in neuroscience is not absolute. Some imaginary concepts do succeed to enter them, and it is not always easy to figure it out. For example, the "columnar organization" of the cortex appear in most new books, even though it is mostly fictitious (Example).

  [4Jan2003] It is getting worse. Here is an example of a straightforward false statement, accompanied by a figure that makes the false concept very clear.

  [6 Nov 2004] for a non-nonsense research on how the cerebral cortex actually looks, without imposing "theoretical" (i.e. prejudicial) biases, Kathleen Rockalnd research is the best that I can find (latest pubished article, Ichinohe and Rockland, Cerebral Cortex 2004 14(11):1173-1184; Note that they use 'modularity' to mean 'patchiness').

• Cognitive Psychology
  Again, textbooks are the best here. However, the problems of incompleteness and bias are much worse. In general, data, implicit assumptions and interpretations are not separated well enough in cognitive psychology texts. Thus it is essential to pay attention to these distinctions. You need to read many more than two textbooks in cognitive psychology to be able to appreciate the underlying data.

• Current models
  Frankly, I don't think there is currently any model that is worth reading about. In general, most of models are neurobiologically implausible (e.g. brain symbols ), while those models that are neurobiologically plausible can explain only very simple phenomena. Both kinds of models use many reasoning errors when bringing supportive evidence.

  That shouldn't stop you from trying to find good models, mainly because it is a good practice of critical reading, and also on the off-chance that there is any useful model around. If you find a model that is neurobiologically plausible, and explains anything more interesting that eye blinking, let me know. You can also try to see how many of the reasoning errors that I list in the Reasoning Errors page applies to it.

• Logic Of Scientific Thinking
  It is quite important to have a good idea of the logic of scientific thinking, and if the reader is not sure about this, he/she should read some basic book(s) about it. That is because in cognitive psychology, the basic rules of scientific thinking are commonly broken, and the reader needs to be able to spot this when it happens.

• Computers
  I don't believe knowledge about computers helps in understanding the brain (for reasons that are explained in this page). However, an important skill in which acquaintance with computers is useful is the understanding of how complex operations may be translated into simple operations. Understanding human cognition means analyzing mental operations into neuronal operations, and it is important to have a good idea of what that means. One of the main reasons that neurobiology is ignored is that cognitive psychologists (and other people) don't have this skill, and don't bother to learn it.

  However, it is important to note that acquaintance with computers is far from being sufficient for developing this skill. This is because the translation between complex and simple operators is different in different systems. Learning the translation in one system does not guarantee a better understanding of the translation in a different system. The important thing to learn is the principles which are involved in the translation, and most of people, including computer scientists, don't understand this.