Overview

Chapter 1 explored some of the very different theoretical developments that ultimately gave rise to what is now known as cognitive science. Already some of the basic principles of cognitive science have begun to emerge, such as the idea that cognition is to be understood as information processing and that information processing can be understood as an algorithmic process. Another prominent theme is the methodology of trying to understand how particular cognitive systems work by breaking down the cognitive tasks that they perform into more specific and determinate tasks. In this second chapter of our short and selective historical survey we will look closely at three milestones in the development of cognitive science. Each section explores a very different topic. In each of them, however, we start to see some of the theoretical ideas canvassed in the previous section being combined and applied to understanding specific cognitive systems and cognitive abilities.

In section 2.1 we look at a powerful and influential computer model of what it is to understand a natural language. Terry Winograd's computer model SHRDLU illustrates how grammatical rules might be represented in a cognitive system and integrated with other types of information about the environment. SHRDLU's programming is built around specific procedures that carry out fairly specialized information-processing tasks in an algorithmic (or at least quasi-algorithmic way).

The idea that the digital computer is the most promising model for understanding the mind was at the forefront of cognitive science in the 1960s and 1970s.