Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science bot

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Bot that posts content from the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: http://oecs.mit.edu [author: @mcxfrank.bsky.social]

Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Consciousness and AI" by Patrick Butlin. Consciousness is what distinguishes the familiar thoughts, emotions, and sensory experiences of waking life from the processes that go on in our brains without our awareness. Conscious experiences fee
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Computational Models of Language Learning" by Raquel G. Alhama and Afra Alishahi. A computational model of language learning is a formal description of how linguistic input can be transformed into either mental representations or (linguistic) behavior. For instance, a model may for
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Social Epistemology" by Mandi Astola and Mark Alfano. Epistemology is the study of knowledge and related phenomena, such as attitudes (e.g., belief, understanding, trust), attributes of these attitudes (e.g., justification, warrant, reliability), and tra
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Information and Misinformation" by Andrew Perfors. For scientists whose primary interest is in policy or sociology, there is an important distinction between information (which is true), misinformation (which is false but thought by the information pr
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "The Interaction Engine" by Stephen C. Levinson. The interaction engine is a label for the specialized capacities involved in human social interaction. The interaction engine comprises a suite of specific abilities that enable communication, for exa
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Bilingualism" by Ludovica Serratrice. Bilingualism—broadly defined as a speaker’s ability to use two (or more) languages (or dialects) in their everyday life—characterizes the language experience of a large and heterogeneous part of the w
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Cumulative Culture" by Maxime Derex. Cumulative culture refers to the process by which cultural traits improve over time through the gradual accumulation of innovations across individuals and generations. This process gives rise to cultu
Figure from the OECS article "Generative Modeling".
Figure from the OECS article "Attention".
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Touch" by Matthew R. Longo. The sense of touch is intimately familiar to everyone. Touch refers to our sensitivity to the pressure and movement of objects in physical contact with the body. Touch is one aspect of a wider class o
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Conversation" by Kobin H. Kendrick and Judith Holler. When people use language together in informal social interactions, whether spoken or signed, researchers often describe it as conversation. While having a conversation can be a social activity in its
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Experimental Philosophy" by Edouard Machery. Experimental philosophy, broadly understood, is the empirical study of empirical questions that are philosophically significant. More narrowly understood, it is the empirical study of philosophically
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Speech Errors" by Giulia M. L. Bencini. Speech errors, or slips of the tongue, happen when speakers unintentionally deviate from what they want to say. Errors can involve word exchanges, such as “this spring has a seat in it” instead of “th
Figure from the OECS article "Inner Speech".
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Speech Recognition" by James M. McQueen. For listeners to understand speech, they must recognize the constituent words of spoken utterances. The cognitive science of speech recognition has therefore focused on developing theories of how word
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "The Language of Thought Hypothesis" by Nicolas Porot and Eric Mandelbaum. The language of thought hypothesis is a thesis about the structure of mental representations. It is an example of the computational–representational theory of mind, according to which much of cognitio
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Language Acquisition" by Ben Ambridge. Child language acquisition is the process by which infants and children come to speak the language of the community around them. Children must acquire a great deal of linguistic knowledge, including t
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Infant-Directed Speech" by Eon-Suk Ko. When communicating with infants, we use infant-directed speech, a specialized way of speaking characterized by a higher pitch, exaggerated intonation, short utterances, and frequent repetition. The la
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Play" by Laura Schulz. Play can loosely be defined as the willing pursuit of seemingly unnecessary costs in pursuit of idiosyncratic ends. It is an intrinsically motivated, intentional behavior characteristic of, although n
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Bodily Sensations". To some degree, the body is one object among others, but intuitively our awareness of it is not like the awareness of any other object. Yet, to specify exactly what is meant by this is relatively diff
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Imitation" by Cecilia Heyes. Imitation is when an observer copies a model’s body movement, and as such, it is a type of social interaction. Imitation is crucial for learning culture-specific gestures, such as facial expressions a
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Large Language Models" by Melanie Mitchell. A large language model (LLM) is a computational system, typically a deep neural network with a large number of tunable parameters (i.e., weights), that implements a mathematical function called a lang
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Neuroeconomics" by Joseph W. Kable. Neuroeconomics is the study of decision-making that integrates theories, methods, and insights from economics, psychology, and neuroscience. Motivating this integration is the desire to understand dec
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Virtual Reality" by Jeremy N. Bailenson. Virtual reality (VR) is a technology that provides perceptually rich, multisensory simulations that surround users and respond to naturalistic body movements. VR has been studied by cognitive scientis
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Transformers" by Raphaël Millière. Transformers are a type of artificial neural network architecture designed to process sequential data—such as text—by selectively focusing on relationships between different elements in the sequence t
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "The Mind-Body Problem" by Tim Crane. The mind–body problem is the problem of explaining how our minds are related to our bodies and to the rest of the material world. It is obvious that our experiences and thoughts, feelings, and emotion
Figure from the OECS article "Niche Construction".
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Neuroaesthetics" by Anjan Chatterjee. Neuroaesthetics is a young discipline that examines the biological basis of aesthetic experiences. Aesthetic experiences emerge from sensory-motor, emotion-valuation, and semantic-knowledge systems. A
Figure from the OECS article "Metacognition".
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Augmented Reality" by Neil McDonnell. Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that provides perceptual experiences that blend the user’s real-world context with computer-generated virtual elements to form a unified scene. AR experiences si
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Free Will" by Neil Levy. While there is continuing disagreement about the definition of free will, philosophers typically understand it as consisting of the kind and degree of control agents need over their actions and decisi
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Ecological Validity" by Mark A. Schmuckler. Ecological validity refers to the degree to which a given research context is indicative of, or can be generalized to, real-world environments. On the surface, ecological validity is a seemingly simpl
Figure from the OECS article "Hidden Markov Models".
Figure from the OECS article "Distributional Semantics".
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Parenting" by Heidi Keller. The conception of parenting covers care and stimulation of infants and toddlers. Although basically all dimensions of care are included, like physical safety, nutrition, hygiene, warmth, and stimulati
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Cognitive Artifacts" by Valeria Giardino. A cognitive artifact is any artificial device designed to aid some mental process. Cognitive artifacts are everywhere; they are used all the time in everyday life for many different purposes. You are
Figure from the OECS article "Eye Movements".