Article,
Dynamical approaches to cognitive science
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4 (3): 91-99 (2000)
Abstract
Dynamical ideas are beginning to have a major impact on cognitive science, from
foundational debates to daily practice. In this article, I review three contrasting
examples of work in this area that address the lexical and grammatical structure of
language, Piaget’s classic ‘A-not-B’ error, and active categorical perception in an
embodied, situated agent. From these three examples, I then attempt to articulate the
major differences between dynamical approaches and more traditional symbolic and
connectionist approaches. Although the three models reviewed here vary considerably
in their details, they share a focus on the unfolding trajectory of a system’s state and
the internal and external forces that shape this trajectory, rather than the
representational content of its constituent states or the underlying physical
mechanisms that instantiate the dynamics. In some work, this dynamical viewpoint is
augmented with a situated and embodied perspective on cognition, forming a
promising unified theoretical framework for cognitive science broadly construed
