There are certain virtues that become obtainable in truly knowing one’s relation to their field. These obtainable virtues associated with this kind of knowledge include ontological fortitude (confidence in the scope of topics one is qualified to discuss), epistemological humility (awareness of what falls in the relevant scope of topics and more importantly, what does not) and also progressive hope (a perspective of the direction one’s field is heading). This seems particularly true of academic roles. Gaining a sense of my relation to cognitive science is a twofold process. It involves firm and grounded knowledge of my field as well as firm and grounded knowledge of my place within that field. This meditative essay involves my undergoing of these two processes to reflect upon my relation to cognitive science as a whole.

The first issue to be reflected upon concerns the nature of cognitive science itself. If cognitive science is the multidisciplinary study of cognition, what is cognition and what does it mean to ascribe to multidisciplinary study? The second issue regards how cognitive science is practiced and how the pursuit of its goal has affected its trajectory. The final issue is concomitant with the first two. Based on what the field is and where it is heading, what are my commitments and responsibilities as one who wishes to practice cognitive science? The goal of this meditative endeavor is to integrate these reflections into a coherent manifesto of my relation to cognitive science. The scope of each reflection will proceed from broad considerations of the field as a whole to narrow and particular considerations of my own interests and role in the field. The reader is encouraged to note that no historical or conceptual perspective is explicitly sought in this paper, rather, the subjective lens of my own limited experiences with cognitive science are shamelessly relied upon to encourage authenticity in this reflective pursuit.

What is Cognitive Science?

What first attracted me to cognitive science was its goal: to identify and understand the causes of intelligent behavior (Collins, 1977). While I was initially becoming acquainted with what cognitive science is, my undergraduate advisor provided me with one of the most memorable descriptions of cognitive science I have come to experience. When asked about cognitive science, she responded, “Oh, cognitive science is sexy.” Thankfully, it was more than this description that has led me to aspire to become a researcher within this field. Certainly, cognitive science was quite attractive, however, the attraction was not founded in any visceral attribute, but rather in what it studies and how it studies it. Coming to a deeper knowledge of these two attributes continues to edify my view of the goal of cognitive science as well as my approach to seeking that goal.

A practical definition of cognitive science is one that is able to touch upon the two attributes previously mentioned: what cognitive science studies and how it studies it. A good starting point is to appeal to the typical definition of cognitive science as a field that studies cognition using a multidisciplinary approach (Von Eckardt, 1996). Naively satisfied, I did not have any problems with this sort of definition early on. As I was undergoing formative instruction as well as taking time to truly reflect on this definition, my comfort with this question became more and more contingent upon answers to three specific questions: What does cognition refer to? What does it mean to ascribe to a multidisciplinary approach? What is the cognitive paradigm and where is it heading?

Cognition

There must be a reason why this field was named cognitive science instead of any number of other names. This was one of the first things we considered in COGS 501: History and Foundations. The word cognition seems to capture the spectrum of interest that began to converge among researchers investigating natural and artificial intelligence (Collins, 1977). In the editorial for the first issue of Cognitive Science, Allan Collins (1977) suggested that interest in cognition was the focal point for the new framework that has produced a new discipline. My role in cognitive science is influenced by what I think cognition means and how it interests me personally. This influence has been shaped by the following reflection: What is the etymology of cognition and how has it been used and understood within cognitive science? Along with the reflection on this question will be the subjective particulars of cognition that have caused me to gravitate towards its study.

I was fortunate to be able to take two semesters of Latin during my first year of undergraduate studies. I have lapsed in my study of this foundational language. One thing that has stuck with me, in spite of my lapse, is the multiple descriptive words in Latin that reflect the mental life and underscore certain aspects of it (e.g. putare, recordor, memini, and credere). These words were used to accentuate the recondite faculties of the mind while the Latin verb cognoscere seems to reflect something that is common to all of these different faculties. Cognoscere refers to the process of coming into knowledge or of knowing. The word cognitio/cognitionis is a noun that refers to any mental process or action involved in cognoscere. These include mental faculties or powers such as sensing, perceiving, attending, remembering, and knowing. In a sense, cognitionis are the necessary powers that enable someone to putare, recordor, memini, and credere (i.e. think, store in memory, retrieve from memory, and assign belief to premises).

The word cognition has not strayed very far from its Latin root and has come to reflect one of the major foundational premises of cognitive science. This premise is the focus of the next section because what I want to emphasize here is the sense of the word cognition that is evoked by its use today. While cognition is certainly closely related to events such as thinking and remembering, the sense that the word evokes when used by many researchers places it close to its Latin root. The sense that is evoked is of the perceptual, neurological and computational events that causally enable such events as thinking and remembering (Trigg & Kalish, 2009). I see my relationship to cognitive science as being influenced more by studying what brings about thought as opposed to being normative about what thought is.

What draws me to the study of cognition is the number of faculties that fall under what is referred to as attention. These include the ability to selectively attend to relevant features in our environment, orient our processing towards relevant features, maintain focus or directed processing, and the ability to develop automatic processing. All of these are important aspects of attention that have been experimentally explored in the psychological study of attention (Styles, 1997). The more developed these experimental paradigms become, the more illusive a solid understanding of attention seems. The temptation is to incorporate all of these abilities and their empirically relevant findings to redefine what attention is as if it is something unknown yet attention is referred to in everyday life with great ease. The classic quote from William James frames this issue well before it was an issue:
“Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence (James, 1890).”

I risk redundancy and unintentional platitudes if I seek to redefine what attention is in my pursuit of cognitive science. I apprehend my role in cognitive science to be an exploration of the causally enabling conditions of the faculties of attention and how these may be incorporated in explaining certain cognitive phenomena. Much of the joint action that takes place in discourse processing orients our attention to facilitate successful communication. Joint actions require collaboration. They consist of those actions where the individual contributions of multiple agents are contingent upon one another as opposed to individual actions that may simply combine additively (Clark, 1996). There are different views of the role of collaboration in discourse processing. One view holds that joint action consists of genuine collaboration between interlocutors (Clark, 1996) while other views hold that joint action consists of representational alignment between interlocutors (Pickering & Garrod, 2004).

How one view constitutes the level of collaboration will affect the predictions that view makes of the role of orientation and selective attention in discourse processing. It is my grounded hope that teasing apart these predictions will contribute to the study and understanding of both discourse processing and the causally enabling processes or mechanisms of attention. Given that cognitive science is the study of cognition and that cognition involves the neurological, computational, and psychological events that causally enable such things as thinking, perceiving, communicating and attending, my interest falls under the domain of cognitive science as presented here. This conclusion is only partially warranted. The subject matter is only part of what makes a research endeavor truly cognitive in the field of cognitive science. How that subject matter is studied is the other part.

Multidisciplinarity

In the previous section, the subject matter of interest to cognitive science was briefly explored through a grounding of the word cognition itself. Furnished with a sense of what cognitive science studies, in this section, attention will be redirected to how cognitive science studies cognition. Multidisciplinarity is highly valued as one of the key attributes of cognitive science. On the cover of the journal, Cognitive Science, the major contributing disciplines are listed: neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, artificial intelligence, education. In what sense is cognitive science multidisciplinary? Barbara Von Eckardt (1996, 2001) stresses the ambiguous nature involved in conceiving of the role of multidiciplinarity in cognitive science. The multidisciplinary ideal can be conceived of as belonging to group efforts or to each individual member of the group’s efforts.

As an aspiring member of this field, it is vital to know the role of multidisciplinarity in my studying and training, but also in my current and future praxis. To be clear, the multidisciplinary ideal is discussed here as it pertains to an individual researcher’s methodologies, not to be confused with an individual researcher’s perspective. In this section, some effort will first be made to motivate the meaning of the multidisciplinary ideal. Then, the two possible conceptions of the multidisciplinary ideal will be construed as well as what each entails for the individual practitioner of cognitive science. Finally, the multiple disciplines that contribute to either the field or each member of the field (depending on how multidisciplinarity is construed) will be briefly discussed with emphasis on their role in my formation, education, and path to cognitive science.

A field is said to be multidisciplinary when it makes use of methodologies characteristic of certain disciplines and utilizes research from multiple disciplines. The multidisciplinary ideal in cognitive science has been present since its conception and involves the balance of analysis and synthesis in its research (Collins, 1977). According to Von Eckardt (2001), the multidisciplinary ideal in cognitive science can be construed locally or holistically and the following explication of these two views is based on her work to demonstrate the role of multidisciplinarity in cognitive science. Von Eckardt discusses multidisciplinarity with regard to methodological concerns. Multiple disciplines contribute to a field’s research efforts in both renderings, however, the emphasis of the multidisciplinary ideal differs with regard to the responsibilities of individual researchers.

The local conception is that a field is multidisciplinary if its individual members produce research efforts that are themselves multidisciplinary, as described by Von Eckardt. If cognitive science is multidisciplinary in this sense, then each of its individual members should be trained to utilize the characteristic methods of contributing discipline. More so than training, each member should also actively publish research that relies on these multiple disciplines. The multidisciplinary emphasis in this view is on each individual researcher. Under this framework, only multidisciplinary work is truly cognitive science while unidisciplinary work[1] is excluded.

If the local conception is correct, this is cause for me to worry. It seems that many instances of educational formation focus on a primary methodology while emphasizing a multidisciplinary perspective. The holist conception is a bit more reflective of this. Von Eckardt expounds this view under which a field is said to be multidisciplinary if it is a characteristic of the field to draw upon multiple disciplines in the execution of its research programs. Under this view, both multidisciplinary research and unidisciplinary research with a multidisciplinary perspective are regarded as work within cognitive science.

I am inclined towards the holist conception for its coherence and practicality. Practicing cognitive science using a localist approach increases the potential for abstruse research. There are numerous disciplines that contribute to the execution of cognitive science’s research program. Methodologically, to carry out the multidisciplinary ideal using a localist framework runs the risk of moving from coherent explanation between multiple methodological endeavors to ostentatious complexity within one esoteric research enterprise. The dictum, simplicity is the seal of verity, is especially relevant here.

There is one thing that is lacking in Von Eckardt’s discussion of the multidisciplinary ideal. While she focuses on methodological concerns within the multidisciplinary ideal, she neglects to address the role of mutlidisciplinarity in one’s perspective while doing cognitive science. Cognition, as elucidated previously, is multifaceted and involves quite a number of constituents. As a subject matter, it breaches disciplinary boundaries. This understanding was at the heart of the emergence of a cognitive paradigm and is reflected in the ideals of cognitive science as a discipline (Dasgupta, 2000). In the practice of cognitive science, it is paramount to maintain a multidisciplinary perspective regardless of what and how many methods one is using.

I approach cognitive science from a background in psychologically. This is the primary method I am trained to use: designing and analyzing behavioral experiments to investigate cognitive phenomena. One issue before me in this meditative endeavor is to determine whether or not I am psychologist studying cognition or a cognitive scientist who primarily does psychological research from a multidisciplinary perspective[2]. The subject matter I am interested in is cognitive but the way I approach its study determines whether or not my research endeavors are appropriate under the field of cognitive science. The next section focuses on how cognitive science is practiced to substantiate the conclusion that the way I wish to study the role of attention in discourse processing is proper to cognitive science. It is proper to cognitive science by way of the explanatory framework involved as well as the grounded view of cognition that is adopted.

How is Cognitive Science Practiced?

Thus far, it has been shown that my role in cognitive science requires that I study cognition using a multidisciplinary perspective. A concomitant of studying cognition within cognitive science involves appealing to a particular research framework: the cognitive paradigm. My desire to practice cognitive science has also birthed a desire to know how the cognitive paradigm emerged and how it has evolved since its advent. It appears reasonable to assume that knowing the roots and trajectory of my field’s paradigm would improve my vocational awareness. For this reason, the present section outlines the main causes of the emergence of the cognitive paradigm, its foundational premises, as well as my view on the trajectory of the cognitive paradigm. This somewhat brief historical exegesis focuses on two important elements within the cognitive paradigm: the cognition as computation metaphor and the establishment of an intermediate level of description.

Emergence of the Cognitive Paradigm

Coming from a background in psychology, one of the most salient causes of the shift that produced the cognitive paradigm was the limited explanatory power of behaviorism in American psychology. Behaviorism advanced the predictive nature of the scientific study of behavior. B. F. Skinner, a major figure in behaviorism, promised an explanation of behavior through observations of the body (Skinner, 1974). Talk of cognitive processing was as an unobservable black box in this framework. While behaviorism was able to offer scientific progress through psychological methods (e.g. the experimental associative learning paradigms of classical and operant conditioning), it offered an impoverished framework for explaining behavior and restricted the scope of interest in psychology (Robinson, 1995).

Behaviorism’s lack of explanatory power was substantiated by Noam Chomsky in his noted review of Skinner’s book Verbal Behavior (Chomsky, 1959). Skinner argued that observation and operant conditioning were the primary mechanisms of linguistic behavior (i.e the ‘functional analysis’ of verbal behavior). Chomsky attacked Skinner’s notion of ‘functional analysis’ through demonstrating its inability to predict the natural ability among people to generate and comprehend completely novel utterances that have never been observed or spoken before. This natural ability, according to Chomsky, is attributed to the cognitive ability of learning the rules that govern the sound and meaning of a language. This cognitive shift in linguistics has had a foundational influence on the cognitive paradigm and further developments and shifts in linguistics (e.g. cognitive linguistics, discourse processing, and situated action) has contributed to shaping the trajectory of the cognitive paradigm. These contributions will be further discussed later because of their relevance to my own interests.

The development of the digital computer and its use as a research tool for information processing has also had foundational roles in the establishment of the cognitive paradigm. The use of computation on representations in computer programs produced an intermediate level of investigating intelligent behavior (Newell, Shaw, & Simon, 1958). The field of artificial intelligence (AI) emerged with the hope of producing problem solving machines through the use of rule-based programming. Different views and approaches to AI have since emerged but AI is only cognitive when it makes use of a computational architecture for explaining intelligent behavior. Despite its initial boom in progress, rule-based AI approaches reached a number of dead ends (Dreyfus, 1994) and out of this came alternative approaches that involved network modeling (Berkeley, 1997). This approach was interested in more than problem solving, it was interested in how these networks learn and what they offered to cognitive theories (Rumelhart, Hinton, & McClelland, 1986).

The convergence that took place among multiple disciplines that resulted in the founding of the journal Cognitive Science involves two foundational premises that have resulted from the previously mentioned developments. If cognition involves the causally enabling conditions for intelligent behavior to emerge and computation offers a framework for explaining these causally enabling conditions, then computation can be used as an explanatory framework for cognition. This is generally referred to as the computational metaphor.

Along with the computational metaphor, the levels of description framework emerged as a way to discuss the organization of a system at different levels of abstraction. Dasgupta (2000) notes that David Marr appealed to this framework to explain visual processing at a physical, computational, and functional level. This way of explaining cognition is appealing because it has the virtue of entertaining neurological, computational, and behavioral levels of description as constituents of cognitive phenomena. The intermediate computational level of description enabled formalisms to be used and tested that peer into the black box. Cognitive modeling makes explicit use of this computational level and has played a huge role in cognitive science (Polk & Seifert, 2002). Cognitive modeling is in some ways the hallmark of cognitive science approaches. It offers rich computational formalisms that are applies to behavioral data and in some cases, but certainly not all, are neurologically inspired.

The use of multiple levels of description coupled with the computational metaphor are what I take to be the two foundational premises of cognitive science. The application of these two foundational premises to understanding the role of attention in discourse processing is what I aim to pursue. While the study of attention has brought about rich computational formalisms (e.g. ALCOVE, Kruschke, 1996), this level of formal description has evaded models of discourse processing and has influenced a movement towards more formal models of discourse (Pickering & Garrod, 2004). Joining the pursuit of a reconciliation of these two areas is a particular interest of mine.

Trajectory of the Cognitive Paradigm

Now that the subject matter and major foundations of the cognitive paradigm have been briefly explicated, it seems reasonable to return to the main goal of cognitive science to see how the pursuit of this goal has affected the cognitive paradigm and where the pursuit of this goal will take cognitive science in the future. To reiterate, I regard the aim of cognitive science as the identifying and understanding of the causes of intelligent behavior. Though limited, my perspective on how this goal has been approached in cognitive science has been influenced by two major problems: the role of reduction in explanation (the mind-body problem) and the problem of representation as an explanatory formalism. The first problem is primarily an analytical problem and has influenced the role of philosophy in my own practice of cognitive science. The second problem is an empirical problem where data calls for the rethinking of certain assumptions. The analytical and empirical endeavors that address these problems shape my view of the trajectory of the cognitive paradigm and the way I wish to practice cognitive science through studying the role of attention in discourse processing.

Reductionism & the mind body problem. One of the first problems that trouble me is the mind-body problem and how it influences views of reductionism. The mind-body problem refers to the issue of how to conceive of the relationship between the mind and the body (Thagard, 2005). I regard this as a major problem concerning the philosophy of mind but its relevance to cognitive science has to do with the role of reductionism in cognitive theorizing. My motivation in addressing it here is because neglecting this problem confounds mereological considerations of cognition and enables conclusions to be made that are beyond the scope of cognitive science (Trigg & Kalish, 2009). I do not wish to reflect on this for the sake of producing profound conclusions on the nature of the self, rather, my desire is to frame the computational metaphor in a way that accords with our common ways of considering and talking about how a person thinks, remembers, perceives, etc.

The behaviorist answer to the mind-body problem is that even if a non-physical world of thought existed in the mind, it is not observable and is therefore not acceptable for scientific study (Robinson, 1995). The solution is one of reduction. Behaviorism sought to reduce mental explanations of behavior to material explanations (Skinner, 1974). In doing this, it is an inexorable necessity that an organism is analyzed in terms of its material components; the whole is stayed in order to theorize about the parts. Componential explanations do not allow for intentionality to be part of the discussion. The problem is that it is nonsensical to discuss behavior without discussing intentionality (Bruner, 1994). Intentionality is properly attributed to the whole of an organism, not its parts. As shown in the previous section and alluded to here, this framework lacked explanatory power and the cognitive paradigm emerged as a reaction against it.

If the behaviorist’s answer to the problem is reduction, what is the reactionary cognitivist’s answer to the problem? The two-fold answer involves the computational metaphor and levels of description. The development of an intermediate computational level allowed for formal descriptions of mental processing situated within a holistic framework. Intentionality was brought back into the discussion by allowing for an explanatory framework that relates matter to behavior in light of the whole system. One common interpretation of this organizational framework is that the brain gives rise to a computational mind that causes intelligent behavior. The logical conclusion to this point of view is that the mind is really the brain and that all behavioral and cognitive descriptions will eventually conform to descriptions from the nascent field of neuroscience where component explanations are the norm (Damasio, 2007). This view can be seen to fall to the same explanatory shortcomings as behaviorism (Trigg & Kalish, 2009) yet it seems to be entertained by many researchers who consider themselves part of the paradigm shift that reacted against behaviorism. It is far too easy to blindly fall to these shortcomings in the spirit of the cognitive revolution. In my own study and research, the trappings of this view continually frustrate my understanding of cognition.

Being a meditative essay, I feel obliged to meditate on the impact this frustration has had on the role of philosophy in my practice of cognitive science. One particular problem that continues to evade my understanding is the role of philosophy in cognitive science. In my experience, philosophy is quite absent in much of cognitive science despite consistently being listed as one of its contributing disciplines. To be clear, I am referring to the role of philosophy in cognitive science as opposed to a philosophy of cognitive science (Brook, 2009). While virtually no one argues about the need of a philosophy of cognitive science, there is some contention about the need for philosophical methods in cognitive science (van Gelder, 1998; Brook, 2009; Trigg & Kalish, 2009).

My lack of conceptual clarity and frustration about the relationship between the mind and the brain were not eased by any empirical considerations. It was through philosophy’s role of conceptual clarification in cognitive science that clarity emerged. This particular role is exercised through an analytical method properly belonging to the discipline of philosophy (Brook, 2009) and not just to a philosophy of cognitive science. I should preemptively say at this point that I do not think it is my role in cognitive science to put forth philosophical theories. Doing so would indicate an identity crisis. While I am not a philosopher and am ill equipped to engage in philosophical theorizing, I find it extremely important to be edified by philosophy in cognitive science through study and analytical reasoning. Philosophy has had a considerable impact on discourse processing (e.g. Searle’s notion of speech acts and Grice’s maxims). Outside of my area of interest, Brook (2009) points out that philosophical thought experiments such as Searle’s Chinese room and Chalmers’ work considering zombies have contributed to the clarification and restructuring of concepts that are of particular interest in experimental research in cognitive science.

Moving on from this brief aside, focus will return to the problem at hand: the relationship between the mind and the brain. The subject matter relevant to cognitive science is cognition, not the metaphysics of human nature. Extreme reductionism attempts to use empirical methods to do analytical metaphysics, an endeavor beyond its reach encroaching upon the territory of other fields. My reach, and what I take to be that of cognitive science, is in that by which cognition takes place and not in that which is cognizing (Adler, 1990). I share in the view that cognitive science is in the business of explaining how the mind works not in what the mind is (Trigg & Kalish, 2009).

It is not the case that the cognitive paradigm rejects behavioral materialism for a kind of behavioral mentalism. In fact, it is absolutely necessary that the neurophysiological level be a large part of our understanding of cognition. What concerns me in my role in cognitive science is whether or not reduction towards neurological explanations should be the trajectory of the cognitive paradigm. The proliferation of neurological findings makes reduction tempting but regardless of the role of reduction in one’s opinion of the relationship between the mind and the brain, there are analytically distinct aspects of the two (Adler, 1990). For example, say that a subject in a brain scan experiment performs a perceptual learning task. At least two descriptions of the experiment can unfold. One description involves the perceptual processes that the subject undergoes while doing this task. Another description is that of the perceptual processes reflected in the brain scan data. While both may reflect the same phenomena at different levels, the language used in the descriptions will be irreducibly different. Some theories (Damasio, 2007) have attempted to reduce the first description to the second, but in my experience these theories are radically incomplete and depend upon hope for hypothetical progress in neuroscience. In my opinion, this reliance renders this type of theoretical framework currently incoherent and its applicability to cognitive research is somewhat intractable. Outside of my opinion, to discard of the computational level of description is to discard of the cognitive paradigm. This type of research is very relevant to many areas but does not accord with the view of cognitive science that has been maintained here.

The problem of reduction can be seen here as a way to refine the breadth of interest in cognitive science. Extreme reductionism and extreme mentalism both impede progress in pursuing the goal of cognitive science in that they lose sight of the fact that intelligent behavior does not exist in a vacuum. There is always some thing that produces intelligent behavior by virtue of its cognitive abilities. The things of interest to cognitive science include people and animals that produce intelligent behavior through the exercise of their natural capacities but they also include artificial systems that produce intelligent behavior by virtue of their manufactured synthetic capacities. These capacities are exercised by the whole system, not its parts. If the trajectory of the cognitive paradigm includes this mereological consideration, much conceptual confusion can be avoided (Trigg & Kalish, 2009). This trajectory will be one that continues to discover the integration between levels of description. The mind-body problem and the problem of reduction both influence the way cognitive science views cognition situated within a cognizer. The closely related problem of representation influences the way cognitive science views computation situated within cognition.

The problem of representation. Analytical considerations were used to address the problems discussed thus far. The problem of representation is one that may be addressed with empirical considerations. Early theories in cognitive science used amodal representations as formalisms for knowledge (e.g. Newell et al., 1958; Rumelhart et al., 1986). Amodal theories assume that knowledge is represented independent of its modal acquisition and that amodal knowledge supports cognitive capacities. One conceptual problem that emerges from this view is that it is not quite clear how these representational formalisms at the computational level integrate between the levels of description. Empirically, more and more findings are emerging that suggest that modal representations, simulation and situated action play a considerable role in cognition (Barsalou, 2008). This evidence substantiates a grounded view of cognition.

In a review of conceptions of grounded cognition and the number of findings that support it, Barsalou (2008) motivates a change in the trajectory of the cognitive paradigm towards grounded theories. He notes particular challenges in these early theories presented by perceptual findings in psychological research as well as findings that show the influence of bodily states and mental simulation on comprehension and production in cognitive linguistics. Relevant to my own interests in cognition, situated action in discourse processing is also a topic that warrants a grounded view of cognition. The study of situated action in discourse integrates perception and action in identifying them as causally necessary constituents of the knowledge required to engage in discourse (Clark, 1996).

With its appeal, grounded theories also present certain obstacles. Amodal theories have developed computational formalisms that are well established in many research enterprises. These formalisms have played a large role in the path cognitive science has taken in the pursuit of its goal. In the view of researchers like Barsalou, there is simply not enough empirical evidence to maintain an amodal course. There are already signs that this opinion is shared by quite a few members of the cognitive science community. For example, recent issues of TOPICS have focused grounded topics such as joint action (situated action) and the integration between perception, representation, and action.

In light of the cognitive paradigm arriving at the problem of representation, the direction that cognitive science seems to be heading is towards grounded approaches. Traditional theories should not be thrown away but revisited in light of new empirical findings. I see these approaches as revitalizing the cognitive paradigm, not replacing it. Grounded approaches make specific assumptions about the nature of representation and how they are integrated within the levels of description framework (Barsalou, 2008). This view also reconciles the computational metaphor to natural ways of conversing about cognition. A common thread among grounded views that Barsalou identifies is that they “attempt to explain unified agents, not just component processes.” As Trigg and Kalish (2009) recommend, computation is a useful formalism as something that a system’s component processes may do but unified agents are attributed with the thinking, perceiving, and remembering that is causally enabled by these computations.

The study of selective attention as it relates to discourse processing fits in with this movement towards grounded theories of cognition. This multifaceted perspective involves explicit reliance upon the integration involved in a levels of description framework. A psychologist who studies cognition does not have to be committed to such an explanatory framework. A cognitive scientist who uses psychological methods is by definition committed to such an explanatory framework. I desire to work within the trajectory of the cognitive paradigm as a cognitive scientist. The onus of this work constitutes the role I seek to play in cognitive science as I whole.

The Onus of the Cognitive Scientist

I see my role in cognitive science as being apprised by the topics and methods of cognitive science, but also in the direction cognitive science has taken since its inception. Much effort has been directed towards these influencing factors. Based on what I have developed up to this point, I will be explicit in articulating what I take to be my role in cognitive science. The normative conclusions that will be made in this discussion section are motivated by the meditative and integrative efforts made in the previous two sections. My responsibilities as a cognitive scientist include the commitments I make as a researcher and the research and scholarship that are entailed by those commitments.

My Commitments as a Cognitive Scientist

As a cognitive scientist, what exactly are my research commitments? By research commitments, I am referring to those assumptions that are inherent in the approach a particular field takes to a problem. Through their research commitments, a researcher determines how to frame the problem they are interested in and the proper vehicles of exploration within that framework. As a cognitive scientist, I am committed to a particular view of cognition and to the cognitive paradigm as the framework for exploring cognition.

I am committed to a particular view of cognition. The problem set before cognitive science is to understand cognition. If cognition itself is such events as thinking, perceiving, attending, and believing, then the problem set before cognitive science is to articulate what those events are. As Trigg & Kalish (2009) have said, this is not a real problem because we already know what those things are. The problem is in understanding what brings such events about. This is the view of cognition that was espoused from the onset of this meditative essay. As a cognitive scientist, I am committed to exploring cognition as the neurological, computational, and psychological predicates of intelligent behavior.

I am committed to the cognitive paradigm. The cognitive paradigm explores the problem of understanding cognition through the computational metaphor and levels of description. This involves the use of computational formalisms to explain cognition and integrating those formalisms within a holistic framework. As a cognitive scientist, I am committed to explanations of cognition that integrate different levels of describing intelligent phenomena with primary emphasis on formalisms afforded within the computational level.

My Research and Scholarship as a Cognitive Scientist

With these commitments, what is the nature of the work that is set before me? I have argued that my particular role in cognitive science is to explore the role of attention in discourse processing under the view of cognition and framework entailed within the practice of cognitive science as a whole. As I have mentioned earlier, the rich computational formalisms of many areas of cognition are difficult to apply to paradigms in discourse processing. My role in cognitive science is to cooperate within the efforts to apply these rich computational formalisms to models of discourse processing.

Multidisciplinarity is a necessity in my scholarship. The study of attention in discourse processing entails an understanding of attention, perception, language, and all of the topics that are touched upon in these areas. This understanding cannot be obtained within the confines of one discipline. It is my responsibility to continually review the literature necessary for such a multidisciplinary topic of interest.

My research efforts have been primarily psychological. My methodological training has focused on the design and evaluation of behavioral experiments. This method is a major contributing source of findings within cognitive science. At this point, the multidisciplinary emphasis in my graduate studies (methodologically and in scholarship) has enabled me to expand my methods to pursue experiments that are analyzed within the context of cognitive models. At this point, this is a goal to pursue as I have yet to be successful in such an implementation.

Overall, I apprehend my role in cognitive science to be an exploration of the causally enabling conditions of the faculties of attention and how these may explain certain cognitive phenomena such as joint action in discourse processing. An understanding of cognitive science as a field along with how it is practiced motivates this vocational awareness. The onus of being a cognitive scientist is to explore cognition proper to how it is framed and practiced within cognitive science. This involves strongly making claims within our domain as well as not treading on the domain of other fields. In other words, my role in cognitive science is to offer explanations of how intelligent behavior is produced in favor of making claims about the metaphysical nature of the systems that produce intelligent behavior.

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