COGNITIVE PROCESS
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 480 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
H.von FOERSTER writes: “No theory of cognitive processes can be constructed merely from sensorial data”… which he thus explains: “The excitations of a nervous cell code only the intensity, but not the nature of the excitation. Codification is only 'such and so much' in this place of my body, and not 'what'”. (1992, p.58).
If so, we are left with a need to bridge the chasm between perceived nervous impulses and their meanings. This is the riddle that constructivism is trying to solve, through interconnected concepts like circularity, operators, closure and algorithm construction.
The cognitive process is now also explored through artificial intelligence research. A mumber of interesting papers By R.L. BROOKS, P. MAES and others, from a symposium on “Integrated Cognitive Architectures”, were published in SIGART, Vol. 2, Nr 4, 1991.
Among the important aspects of the cognitive process, these studies emphasize: perceiving, interconnecting perceptions, acting, registering the positive or negative results of action, keeping these results registered for further reference (i.e. becoming able to use them selectively in future action), improving behavior (i.e. obtaining better results from action, based on cumulative experience).
This kind of progressive build up of cognition, integrated from perception, action and memory could be the bridge between old behaviorism, constructivism and autopoiesis.
The subject is also related to so-called artificial life, through “Agent network architecture” (P. MAES, 1991, p.115-20).