The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition

This book is a guide to a movement in cognitive science showing how environmental and bodily structure shapes cognition.

Philip Robbins (Edited by), Murat Aydede (Edited by)

9780521848329, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 November 2008

526 pages, 3 tables
26 x 18.3 x 3.5 cm, 1.24 kg

"...This volume is a rich source of ideas and references for further exploration, covering every aspect of cognitive activity and engaging the full range of supporters and opponents of the basic ideas. References are listed separately for each chapter, but there is an integrated index. The work will be essential background for any course in cognitive science, and it can also serve as a convenient desk reference for researchers in AI, robotics, and other systems that require careful consideration of the relation between thinking and the world."
—H. Van Dyke Parunak, Computing Reviews

Since its inception some fifty years ago, cognitive science has seen a number of sea changes. Perhaps the best known is the development of connectionist models of cognition as an alternative to classical, symbol-based approaches. A more recent - and increasingly influential - trend is that of dynamical-systems-based, ecologically oriented models of the mind. Researchers suggest that a full understanding of the mind will require systematic study of the dynamics of interaction between mind, body, and world. Some argue that this new orientation calls for a revolutionary new metaphysics of mind, according to which mental states and processes, and even persons, literally extend into the environment. This book is a guide to this movement in cognitive science. Each chapter tackles either a specific area of empirical research or specific sector of the conceptual foundation underlying this research.

Part I. Backdrop: 1. A short primer on situated cognition Philip Robbins and Murat Aydede
2. Scientific antecedents of situated cognition William J. Clancey
3. Philosophical antecedents of situated cognition Shaun Gallagher
Part II. Conceptual Foundations: 4. How to situate cognition: letting nature take its course Robert A. Wilson and Andy Clark
5. Why the mind is still in the head Fred Adams and Kenneth Aizawa
6. Innateness and the situated mind Robert Rupert
7. Situated representation Mark Rowlands
8. Dynamics, control, and cognition Chris Eliasmith
9. Explanation: mechanism, modularity, and situated cognition William Bechtel
10. Embedded rationality Ruth Millikan
Part III. Empirical Developments: 11. Situated perception and sensation in vision and other modalities: from an active to a sensorimotor account Erik Myin and Kevin O'Regan
12. Spaces of thought Barbara Tversky
13. Remembering John Sutton
14. Situating concepts Lawrence W. Barsalou
15. Problem-solving and situated cognition David Kirsh
16. The dynamic interactions between situations and decisions Jerome R. Busemeyer, Ryan K. Jessup and Eric Dimperio
17. Situating rationality: ecologically rational decision making with simple heuristics Henry Brighton and Peter M. Todd
18. Situativity and learning R. Keith Sawyer and James G. Greeno
19. Language in the brain, body, and world Rolf A. Zwaan and Michael P. Kaschak
20. Language processing embodied and embedded Michael Spivey and Daniel Richardson
21. Situated semantics Varol Akman
22. Is consciousness embodied? Jesse J. Prinz
23. Emotions in the wild: the situated perspective on emotion Paul Griffiths and Andrea Scarantino
24. The social context of cognition Eliot R. Smith and Frederica R. Conrey
25. Cognition for culture Michael Tomasello and Felix Warneken
26. Neuroethology: from morphological computation to planning Malcolm A. MacIver.

Subject Areas: Cognition & cognitive psychology [JMR], Philosophy of mind [HPM]