Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Science of the Mind Paperback – August 12, 2010

Cognitive Science is supposed to be an interdisciplinary field, drawing from developments in psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, and computer science. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, the people calling themselves cognitive scientists began to distance themselves from developments in these fields, seemingly only listening in for tidbits that they wanted to hear (e.g. Marr's three levels of analysis). To be sure, 'cognitive science' was still developing, just increasingly under the names 'cognitive neuroscience', 'systems neuroscience', and 'cognitive psychology'. Just as early cognitive science took inspiration from the nascent field of artificial intelligence, today's fields take inspiration from modern work in machine learning, a far more powerful and successful descendent of good-old fashioned AI.

The 'cognitive scientists' just haven't kept up. That is evident in this new book by Bermudez (2010). Frankly, with the exception of some basic coverage of dynamical systems in the final chapter (entitled 'Looking Ahead'), the book feels like it could have been written twenty years ago. The debate about symbolic processing vs. connectionism is straight out of 80s, and fails to take into consideration the major developments in machine learning architectures since then, especially the shift from training networks via backpropagation to deep generative architectures (e.g. the work of Hinton and colleagues). Similarly, while there is much discussion about Marr's view of vision (1982), it isn't mentioned that this view was more or less rejected by neuroscientists in the 1990s, and our current view of vision is founded on generative models and Bayesian inference. In fact, I don't even know if Bermudez mentions the word 'Bayesian', which is a glaring oversight given the influence that Bayesian ideas have had on the last decade. Bayesian ideas have been used to recast traditional problems not only in perception and motor control, but also in human reasoning, which you would think has relevance to 'cognitive science'. Similarly, computational linguistics has had major success by importing ideas from machine learning free of the constraints of traditional linguistics. These are just some of the examples of developments in 'cognitive science' in the last 10-20 years that you won't find in this book.

A lot of this isn't Bermudez' fault - the cognitive science community has simply been left in the dust by modern developments. However, I had hoped that a new book on cognitive science would do a better job synthesizing recent developments and positioning the field for the 21st century.

Here is the conclusion of my review of this book for the journal MetaScience:

Overall, this is a superb introductory textbook. It would be possible, but hardly constructive, for anyone to criticize the selection of topics that were presented or left out. Bermúdez has cherry-picked theoretical topics, experimental findings, and methodological approaches, to put together a coherent and all-encompassing view of a unified science of the mind for the newcomer. In my opinion, there is nothing really crucial that isn't adequately presented. The prose is admirably fluid, the content is clear, and the stated intentions of the author seem well served. I am not entirely convinced that unsuspecting freshmen or sophomores will be able to get as much out of a course based on this book as it can offer, although this would depend largely on the general level of individual institutions. I am certain that this book can open up new worlds for juniors with previous exposure to empirical sciences and developed critical thinking skills, showing that the study of the mind lies along a continuum with the rest of the physical sciences, as a distinct level of analysis on top of neuroscience qua biology, rather than in some domain of unsubstantiated verbosity and conceptual confusion coming out of armchair theorizing, as certain approaches to psychology are sometimes perceived. In this respect, the book does inestimable service to the future of cognitive science by exposing future researchers to clear thinking in the application of multidisciplinary methods to intriguing questions about the structure and function of the mind.

The book is also well designed from a pedagogical point of view, providing many useful devices for study and integration. Thoughtful questions are interspersed within the text, guiding students to pause and digest novel material. Boxes explain specific topics without distracting from the main flow. Annotated reading lists are provided in each chapter, wisely guiding students who wish to delve in more depth into particular issues. Helpful summaries and checklists at the end of each chapter present the main ideas briefly, in a structure that helps appreciate the flow of arguments in bare form. Most importantly, these checklists can help students confirm that they have processed the chapter successfully or indicate topics inadequately understood and in need of review.

As a first edition that has undoubtedly been in writing for a number of years, this book contains remarkably few of the usual problems, minor typographical errors, inaccuracies, repeated material, outdated or uneven treatment, and so on, apt to be rectified in future editions. The main issue is, does the book appear well positioned to achieve the goals of instilling fundamental principles in the minds of students with no relevant background, exciting their interest and stimulating their engagement, to be further developed in more advanced courses? In my opinion, the answer is a resounding yes. This is certainly the textbook I would choose to teach an introductory course in cognitive science. Its main strengths are coherence in thought and presentation, insistence on empirical support while retaining the centrality of theory, clear exposition of all the main theoretical issues, and very helpful design to support students in studying and digesting the material. It seems that the field of cognitive science has finally been presented with a real introductory textbook that is at once comprehensive and int grated, with a clear vis e ion of the field and a plan leading towards it.

See the full review at springerlink MetaScience Online, DOI: 10.1007/s11016-011-9611-8 -- the title is "Foundations for a coherent science of the mind"