Unity: Support From Cognitive Science

[Photo by Melisande]

Stanovich (2004a) agrees with two central points of Henriques’ argument (start here). Firstly that human cognitive architecture can be split into ‘two broad domains’: quick-acting, unconscious parallel processes and logical-analytic processing, which is linear, slower and conscious. Secondly, Stanovich (2004a) agrees that the differences between humans and other animals are central to psychology.

Taking the ‘two broad domains’ first, these are seen in cognitive psychology in a number of dual-process theories that have been developed: Stanovich (2004b) identifies 22 of them. How have these dual-processes arisen? Some evolutionary psychologists argue that hypothetical thinking was selected for as it allowed humans to understand other minds. Hypothetical thinking allows a person to imagine ‘possible states of the world’.

Hypothetical thinking is also central, in Stanovich’s view to the difference between humans and animals rather than Henriques’ justification processes. Metarepresentational abilities, or ‘thinking about thinking’, represent the ‘cognitive divide’ between humans and animals. This is where Stanovich (2004a) takes issue with Henriques although he does agree that justification processes could have been involved in the development of metarepresentational abilities.

About the author

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology.

He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. He is also the author of the book “Making Habits, Breaking Habits” (Da Capo, 2003) and several ebooks.

SOURCE: PSYBLOG