Human Cognition in Context: On the Biologic, Cognitive and Social Reconsideration of Meaning as Making Sense of Action

Abstract

The aim of this special issue of IPBS has been to explore concrete and explicit alternatives to cognitivism. Indeed, in our editorial introduction we set out to give a brief survey of the numerous criticisms that have been made of understanding the mind this way (Ibáñez and Cosmelli, Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Sciences, 2008). Thus in what sense do the contributions here presented succeed in providing novel alternatives, moving into original and potentially generative domains of inquiry? While much remains to be done, we believe that they make significant headway in more than one sense. We do believe, however, that there is one locus that furnishes a convergence ground that is worth considering seriously: the problem of meaning. Meaning as making sense of contextualized action seems to cross the domains of intentionality, intersubjectivity and ecology of mind. The development of multilevel approaches, as the authors here exemplify, argues for a novel research agenda.

Event-Related Potential Studies of Cognitive and Social Neuroscience

“…Context-dependence effects are pervasive in everyday cognition (Barutta et al, 2011;Cosmelli and Ibañez, 2008;Ibanez and Cosmelli, 2008;Ibanez et al, 2010a), especially in the case of language (Ledoux, Camblin, Swaab and Gordon, 2006; Rodriguez-Fornells, Cunillera, Mestres-Misse and de Diego-Balaguer, 2009). We listen and say words within other streams of words.…”

Performance Errors of in Group/ Out Group Stimuli and Valence Association in the Implicit Association Test: Brain Bias of Ingroup Favoritism

“…Further studies manipulating IAT attributes and measuring the MFN should be considered in the future. The convergence of measures assessing the ingroup favoritism at different levels of analysis (behavioral and electrophysiological) can help the coconstruction of inter-level theories [42,43].…”

The Machine Paradigm and Alternative Approaches in Cognitive Science

“…At the epistemological level, the author does not take into consideration the existence of multiple traditions that have already highlighted the organic attribute of the psychological phenomenon (see Cosmelli and Ibañez 2008). Even in more recent conceptualizations such as Gibson's and Turvey's ecological psychology and in the project of an integrative neuroscience, it is possible to find this trend (Gordon 2000(Gordon , 2003Wright et al 2003).…”

“…To the contrary, current social science, psychological science, and neurosciences provide multiple perspectives that take into consideration all of the aforementioned psychological processes (for a review, see Cosmelli and Ibañez 2008).…”