A property cluster theory of cognition

Abstract

Our prominent definitions of cognition are too vague and lack empirical grounding. They have not kept up with recent developments, and cannot bear the weight placed on them across many different debates. I here articulate and defend a more adequate theory. On this theory, behaviors under the control of cognition tend to display a cluster of characteristic properties, a cluster which tends to be absent from behaviors produced by non-cognitive processes. This cluster is reverse-engineered from the empirical tests that comparative psychologists use to determine whether a behavior was generated by a cognitive or a non-cognitive process. Cognition should be understood as the natural kind of psychological process that non-accidentally exhibits the properties assessed by these tests (as well as others we have not yet discovered). Finally, I review two plausible neural accounts of cognition's underlying mechanisms-one based in localization of function to particular brain regions and another based in the more recent distributed networks approach to neuroscience-which would explain why these properties nonaccidentally cluster. While this notion of cognition may be useful for a number of debates, I here focus on its application to a recent crisis over the distinction between cognition and association in comparative psychology.

What are cognitive processes? An example-based approach

“…Concerning the remaining alternatives I want to remain neutral: it is possible that on the basis of a fruitful example-based characterization we will end up with nothing but a fruitful convention for using a concept given the actual state of science; or, indeed, we may in fact establish a natural kind term referring to cognitive processes as determined by nature. There are different ways of understanding natural kinds, for example as a kind determined by one key property [as with Putnam's (1975) account of water as determined by H 2 O], or by a cluster of properties (Boyd 1999;Buckner 2015). The development of cognitive science will help us in the future to decide which understanding of the example-based strategy is best; but given the early stage of cognitive science it seems most reasonable to be modest, and to concentrate on convincing examples which at least might have the power to characterize an independent science for the time being.…”

“…Are we justified in claiming that cognitive processes constitute a natural kind, as suggested by e.g. Buckner (2015)? All we now know is clearly compatible with the view that we are dealing mainly with biological processes, which may constitute natural kinds even while their functional roles vary when used in organisms which need to meet rather different environmental challenges, especially over evolutionary timescales.…”

Rational Inference: The Lowest Bounds

“…Tapping into a methodology in comparative psychology that can be traced back to Darwin and Morgan (Clatterbuck, ), these researchers treat these judgments as inferential because they enable subjects to reliably succeed in perceptually novel circumstances where other forms of behavioral explanation—especially in terms of reflex, instinct, and basic forms of associative learning—are inadequate (Buckner, ; Heyes & Dickinson, ; Ristau, ). Instead, they explain these judgments by appeal to the representational contents of those agents’ cognitive and conative states, especially their tracking of abstract, higher‐order, spatial, causal, or psychological relations in their environment (Buckner, ). They thus seem to satisfy at least one core idea associated with Taking and CI: that some nonlinguistic judgments can be sensitive to the representational contents of the cognitive and conative states governing the agent's actions.…”

“…First, realistic expectations: the present view cannot convince all skeptics of nonlinguistic inference, especially those who consider it akin to an analytic truth that genuine inference requires logical structure or an explicit, metarepresentational awareness of one's reasons for acting. The best that could probably be said in response to such definitional skepticism is that I have here articulated an important natural kind of judgment—probably with the kind of homeostatic property‐cluster structure that characterizes nearly any interesting psychological posit, whether modules, concepts, emotions, or cognition itself (Buckner, ; Fodor, ; Griffiths, ; Machery, )—that merely shares many properties in common with “genuine” inferences.…”

Situatedness and Embodiment of Computational Systems

“…All these problems notwithstanding, partial insights are possible. For example, Buckner has plausibly argued that in comparative psychology, several properties of cognitive processes cluster together [24]. As he notices, the main property attributed to cognitive processes by comparative psychologists is behavioral flexibility, studied in more detail by devising tests that are supposed to tease out processes characterized by context-sensitivity, speed, class formation (in object recognition), higher-order and abstract learning, multi-modality of sensory perception, inhibition of behavioral strategies, monotonic integration (distinguishing dimensions along which stimuli can be ordered by increasing value), as well as expectation generation and monitoring.…”