cognitive-science

Traditional cognitive science has historically confined the mind within the cranium. While the “second brain” metaphor underscores the autonomy of the enteric nervous system, it remains entrenched in a neurocentric paradigm. Here, we propose a transformative framework: the gut microbiota may function as a constitutively relevant contributor to specific embodied cognitive architectures. We contend…

_Journal of Cognitive Science_ 26 (3):289-335. 2025This paper aims to explore the dynamic aspect of deepening our understanding of concepts and reality that involves experiences and thought at later stages of our lives along personal and social dimensions. We take a linguistic approach, using corpus data focusing on examples of Japanese hontōno {jibun/ shiawase} ‘true {self/ happiness}’ and their…

Coherence Testing proposes that biological, cognitive, and social systems all operate according to a single universal mechanism: when faced with ambiguity, they generate exploratory variation, evaluate micro‑trajectories, and collapse into the most coherent available configuration. This operator—coherence testing—unifies processes traditionally treated as domain‑specific, including chemotaxis, ne…

HUMANITY AS A MIDDLE CHILD IN THE AGE OF AI Humanity's relationship with artificial intelligence has entered a stage of epistemic adolescence. Positioned between its own rational past and an emerging class of autonomous inferential systems, humanity increasingly behaves like a middle child: deferential, identity-diused, and tempted toward the comfort of delegation. This paper examines how deferen…

This paper argues that the epistemological crisis induced by large language models (LLMs) cannot be understood as the simple aggregation of individual cognitive effects. Between individual-level cognitive closure and civilizational-scale epistemological decline, a social transmission layer has been almost entirely absent from current discourse. This paper fills that gap by arguing for three socia…

_Minds and Machines_ 4 (2):245-249. 1994Review of a compendium of alternative formal representations of common-sense knowledge. The book is centered largely on formal representations drawn from first-order logic, and thus lies in the tradition of Kenneth Forbus, Patrick Hayes and Jerry Hobbs. ( direct link )

_Https://Doi.Org/10.5281/Zenodo.19917294_. 2026Interpretation is commonly treated as a function of clarity, correctness, or structural compatibility. This paper proposes that interpretation is also constrained by temporal conditions. An informational state may be structurally valid yet fail to produce meaningful interpretation if evaluated outside an appropriate temporal context. This results in …

This study presents a quantitative analysis of errors in the perception and interpretation of hydronyms by university students in Western Kazakhstan. The aim of the study is to identify the types of errors that occur when students interpret hydronymic units and to reveal the cognitive difficulties underlying these errors. The study involved 120 university students who had previously completed cou…

A new analysis of honeybee vision suggests their ability to distinguish quantities is not a trick of visual patterns, but evidence of genuine numerical cognition shaped by how their brains see the world. The post Honeybees Can Process Numerical Information, New Study Confirms appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News .

Deep Dive: The Cognitive Science Behind the ACLAS Neuro-Edu SDK 🏛️🧠 At the Atlanta College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (ACLAS) , we aren't just building "another AI tutor." We are engineering a fundamental reconceptualization of how Large Language Models (LLMs) align with the human mind. Today, we’re peeling back the curtain on the Neuro-Edu Technical Whitepaper . If you’ve ever wondered why gen…

Progress has always been made by people who think differently. Neurodiversity helps us think outside the box – and when we do, the sky’s the limit One of my favourite pieces of scientific equipment is something called a retrospectroscope. I admit that it only exists in my imagination, but it has turned out to be a very useful bit of kit. It allows me to look back through the years of my life and …

_Biosystems_ 256. 2025Understanding emerges not from isolated cognitive abilities but from recursive depth—the capacity for self- referential processing grounded in systems with authentic thermodynamic constraints. The Reaction to Reflection (R2R) model advances a unifying principle for intelligence, identifying four evolutionary transitions in recursive sophistication: reaction (chemical recursi…

Anyone who has spent time with a baby knows how unpredictable the first year can feel. One week a baby suddenly seems to “get” something new. The next week, that same response may disappear. Parents often describe this as progress coming in bursts rather than in a straight line. These changes can be exciting to watch, but they can also raise questions. Did my baby forget? Did something go wrong? …

Humans have the ability to do “secondary representations”: that is, to pretend that one object or action is actually different from a real one. This can also be called “pretense”. Examples are children’s “tea parties” in which they use empty pots and toy cups, pretending to drink from the empty cups while knowing they are … Continue reading Chimps engage with pretend objects, suggesting they have…

New study reveals our closest relatives share the cognitive roots of imagination and pretense.

Amalia Bastos first met Kanzi the bonobo in 2023. Bastos was “starstruck,” she recalls: Kanzi was famous for learning how to communicate with humans using a keyboard of symbols. Upon first seeing Bastos, Kanzi immediately pointed at her and another scientist. Then the ape pointed to his “lexigrams”—the symbols he used to communicate—selecting the icons for “chase” and “tickle.” The two researcher…

Spelling F-O-O-D or O-U-T might only get you so far around your dog if he or she is considered a Gifted Word Learner (GWL). Researchers have just figured out that even when you're not talking to them directly, they're still acquiring new terms. The researchers at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest seem to have one of the best jobs in the world. They get to more or less play with dogs every day …

“Under the right conditions, some dogs present behaviors strikingly similar to those of young children.”

Dogs that easily learn the names of toys might also mentally sort them by function, a new example of complex cognitive activity in the canine brain.

In this week’s blog post, we delve into the intelligent mechanisms behind how and why the smart bird catches the worm! Author Junghyuk Keum gives us a glimpse into the Cognitive Buffer Hypothesis – a theory they used to explore seabird ecology in their recently published paper: “Does brain size matter? Linking cognitive and ecological traits to climate change vulnerability in seabirds.” Junghyuk …