This volume focuses on the modellings of cognition, and brings together contributions from psychologists and researchers in the field of cognitive science. The shared platform of this work is to advocate a dynamical systems approach to cognition. Several aspects of this approach are considered here: chaos theory; artificial intelligence and Alife models; catastrophe models; and self-organization theory or synergetics. The application of nonlinear systems theory to cognitive science in general, and to cognitive psychology in particular, is a growing field that has gained further momentum thanks to contributions from the science of robotics. The development in cognitive science towards an account of embodiment, together with the general approach of complexity theory and dynamics, has also had a major impact on our psychological understanding of reasoning, thinking and behaviour.
Wolfgang Tschacher, born in Germany, studied psychology at Tübingen University where he received his Ph.D. in 1990. Psychotherapy training in systemic therapy at the Institute of Family Therapy, Munich. Habilitation in psychology and Venia legendi 1996 at University of Bern, Switzerland, associate professorship in 2002. He currently works at the University Hospital of Psychiatry, where he is head of the department of psychotherapy research. His main interests are in empirical psychotherapy research and experimental psychopathology, with an emphasis on dynamical systems approaches, complexity science, embodied cognition, and phenomena of cognitive self-organization. Organizer of the series of 'Herbstakademie' conferences on systems theory in psychology.
For his reference list and conference / project information see www.upd.unibe.ch.
