Analogy
Analogy can be defined as a kind of similarity in which the same system of relations holds across different sets of elements, regardless of whether the elements are similar. Thus analogies can capture abstract parallels across situations that have few or no concrete similarities. In addition to reve
Attention
When agents pay attention, they do so selectively across modalities of mind such as perception and cognition. For example, they visually search for a friend in a crowd to signal to them or interpret a painting by scrutinizing it. They listen to an interlocutor to understand what is being said or sec
Causal Reasoning
We engage in causal reasoning on a daily basis, whether we are stacking books, figuring out why a friend is upset, or deciding the guilt of a defendant. It allows us to predict and explain the world around us, to imagine what-if, and to assign praise and blame. What differentiates causal reasoning f
Cognitive Variability
Cognitive variability reflects the instability of our cognitive abilities. Our ability to reason, respond, and remember fluctuates within the same person across seconds, minutes and hours, and even days, weeks, and months. Imagine two children, Charles and Ada, performing a cognitive task, such as r
Concepts
Concepts are recombinable elements of deliberate conscious thoughts. When I think birds fly, I use my concept of birds and my concept of flying. We think about the world by categorizing things under concepts. This allows us to use existing knowledge (the bird may well fly off). And when we learn som
Counterfactual Thinking
What if I had not missed my meeting this morning? What if the axis of the earth was tilted three degrees to the left? What if Napoleon had won Waterloo? These questions exemplify the all-too-human psychological tendency to think about alternative ways in which the world could have been. This imagina
Memory
Memory is a capacity that enables an agent’s behavior to be modified and shaped by its past experience. Given this characterization, two central questions arise. First, what are the mechanisms by which such behavioral modifications are produced—that is, how does memory function? Second, should memor
Metaphor
Metaphor involves describing or understanding one thing in terms of another. When talking about “fighting” urges, “wrestling with” a decision, or “swimming in” debt, people use words for physical actions to refer to experiences that are not inherently physical. Researchers call the concept being des
Modularity
The term “module” is typically used by cognitive scientists to denote mental components or subsystems that are, in some suitable way, distinct and specialized. So construed, debates regarding modularity have been widespread in large measure because of their connection to a core assumption of cogniti
Self
You are a self: the kind of thing that is a who, with all the dignity and responsibility afforded by that status, the kind of thing that has a distinctive perspective on events—on your past as you remember it, your future as you anticipate it, and your present as you experience it. Your grasp of the
Spatial Cognition
Spatial cognition is used in cognitive science, as well as in other allied disciplines, to denote thinking about spatial content, such as positions in an environment or shapes of objects. The term additionally covers a wide variety of heterogeneous mental activities, given that the world is inherent