Special Issue "Cognition and Communication"
A special issue of Information (ISSN 2078-2489).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2011) | Viewed by 41648
Special Issue Editors
2 Center for Second Language Research, University of Hawaii, 1890 East-West Rd., Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
Interests: cognitive science of learning; computational models of language; statistical learning; embodied and situated cognition; bilingualism; psycholinguistics; interplay of cognitive and social factors in learning
Interests: language/vision interaction; dynamical systems theory; embodied and situated cognition; psycholinguistics; neural networks; eye-tracking and reach-tracking
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues
“If internal relations can qualify as [representational] vehicles, why not external relations? Given a continuous complex dynamic system of reciprocal causal relations between organism and environment,what in principle stops the spread? The idea that vehicles might go external takes the notion ofdistributed processing to its logical extreme.” - Susan Hurley (1998, Analysis)
The study of cognition and communication has at times been punctuated by harsh theoretical oppositions between internalist and externalist characterizations of the phenomenon at hand. For example, in the study of language -- a hallmark of human cognition -- different traditions and circles have characterized the core of language as being either inside the brain as a mental faculty or outside in the arena of communicative interaction among different interactants. While these views have been seen as incommensurable, this collection of papers aims to map the progression that binds together both internalist and externalist accounts in a new model visualization of language and communication.
From the original idea of a core grammar module separated from the rest of language-internal representations, to seeing language as a multidimensional system whose space encompasses brain and body (motor and perceptual components), to finally including situational models of interacting bodies and minds, we aim to defuse the internalist/externalist debate and replace it with a more integrative interpretation of what cognition and communication might mean. The coming together in this special issue of authors belonging to different but related disciplines (psychology, linguistics, education, communication, cognitive science, and information science) testifies to the widespread and urgent need for a reconciliatory turn in the social sciences.
Prof. Dr. Luca Onnis
Prof. Dr. Michael J. Spivey
Guest Editors