Toward a Cognitive Science of Human Thinking: Why so Slow?

perception and action. In contrast, our understanding of higher human cognition has advanced so little that current investigators can cite ancient sources with a straight face. In this lecture, I consider why the most important aspects of the human mind have been so resistant to scientific analysis, and I describe a strategy for overcoming this resistance. The strategy centers on two proposals. First, human cognition builds on a small set of core knowledge systems: systems that are as amenable to study as our systems for perceiving depth or reaching for objects. Second, new cognitive capacities and systems of knowledge develop through the productive combination of these core systems: a combinatorial process that depends on humans' species-specific faculty for natural language. I illustrate the strategy by describing research on two core systems for representing inanimate, manipulable objects and animate, goal-directed actions. Moreover, I consider one uniquely human capacity that arises when these systems are combined: the capacity to represent artifacts as structured objects with dedicated functions.show less...