Cognitive Sciences : Basic Problems, New Perspectives, and Implications for Artificial Intelligence

This highly original work extends and enriches our understanding of the theoretical apparatus of cognitive science and highlights some new aspects and possibilities for developing this interdisciplinary subject. The author examines the theoretical and methodological foundations of cognitive science and explores its usefulness as a descriptive and explanatory tool.

The topics covered range from such relatively unexplored ones as observability networks and their restrictions, random and semi-random fuzzy objects, and relations between subjective and objective time, through judgement formation, descriptions, and texts, to more traditional subjects studied by cognitive scientists, namely, visual perception, memory, and communication. In her treatment of each topic, the author develops new conceptual representations of the phenomenon analyzed, postulates appropriate mechanisms, and formulates explanatory hypotheses.

Dr. Nowakowska treats cognitive processes through a set of interrelated theories, from different perspectives and on various levels of generality. She departs from the information processing paradigm and proposes new concepts and solutions based on psychological intuitions and mechanisms. Her work stresses the problems of cognitive limitations and distortions as well as the generative, controlled, and dynamic character of cognition.

Nowakowka's emphasis on the dynamic and stochastic aspects of cognition, on minute description of the empirical situation, her appreciation of the important role of the notions of time and observability, and her endeavour to approach diverse areas of cognition within one unifying framework deserve the attention of everyone working in the broad area of cognitive science.
--JOURNAL OF MATHEMATICAL PSYCHOLOGY