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Theory and Review in Psychology
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A strong programme for the cognitive psychology of science. |
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| Abstract Introduction Fundamental Assumptions of the Cognitive Approach Aspects of a Cognitive Theory of Science A Cognitive Approach to Scientific Discourse Conclusions | Sociological approaches deny the need for psychological, and particularly cognitive, explanations of scientific discourse because psychological processes are assumed to be a consequence of social processes. This view of scientific discourse is challenged in the present paper. Recognition of the role of social processes in scientific discourse does not obviate the role of cognitive processes. It is argued that the cognitive psychology of science should establish a programme of research based upon the theories, methodologies and body of evidence from cognitive psychology. Consequently, the cognitive psychology of science should not accept the issues and assumptions of the history, philosophy and sociology of science. The present paper attempts to develop a cognitive approach to the study of scientific discourse. In particular, this paper explores the underlying assumptions of a cognitive study of scientific discourse. A cognitive approach to scientific discourse assumes that scientists' mental representations play a pervasive role in their discourse with other scientists and that scientists' representations are modified through interaction with other scientists. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible avenues for further work. |
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Nor should psychological approaches to scientific discourse adopt the methods of inquiry (e.g., ethnography) of other disciplines. The methodologies of various disciplines are based on their epistemological and theoretical assumptions (Nickles, 1989). Consequently, adopting the methodology of another discipline may result in the inevitable adoption of the discipline's fundamental assumptions. Instead, psychological research should rely upon methodologies developed in experimental psychology and cognitive science. Psychologists have developed a number of quantitative (e.g., correlational techniques, experimental design) and qualitative methods (e.g., protocol analysis, computer simulation) which can be applied to the study of science.As Freedman and Smith (1985) have argued, the cognitive psychology of science develop a research programme based upon the theory and evidence from experimental psychology and cognitive science (see Holland, Holyoak, Nisbett & Thagard, 1986, for a good example of this approach). This recommendation assumes that psychological theories are sufficiently developed to provide explanations of scientific discourse (Neimeyer, Shadish, Freedman, Houts, & Gholson, 1989). Just as the strong programme within the sociology of scientific knowledge presumes that nothing about scientific discourse is immune from sociological analysis, the strong cognitive programme presumes that nothing about scientific cognition is immune from psychological investigation: from individual scientist's representations to the discussion of scientific concepts within groups of scientists. Two reasons can be offered for the need for a strong programme for the cognitive psychology of science. First and foremost, scientific reasoning, like all behaviors, is open to psychological explanations. Second, the various areas of science studies (i.e., history, philosophy and sociology) have radically different fundamental assumptions about the subject matter. As Woolgar (1987) notes, the dispute between sociology and cognitive psychology involves alternative conceptions of humans. Consequently, adopting the fundamental assumptions of other disciplines could result in the psychological approach missing important aspects of scientific behavior. For example, although cognitive theories of knowledge representation assume that the world is knowable only through one's representation of it, cognitive theories do not agree with the relativist epistemology advocated within the sociology of scientific knowledge (Latour & Woolgar, 1986). Therefore, the cognitive psychology of science should not look to other disciplines for its assumptions.Although Giere (1989) is correct in asserting that cognitive psychology can provide a comprehensive view of science, other perspectives also provide unified views. Mitroff and Kilmann (1977) and Collins (1983) have suggested that multiple perspectives are needed for understanding the nature of scientific knowledge. Therefore, a pluralistic strategy in science studies seems to be most appropriate. A pluralistic approach is not meant to promote an interdisciplinary study of scientific discourse. As Woolgar (1989) argues, psychology and sociology do not offer complimentary perspectives of scientific discourse. These approaches represent fundamentally different views of the nature of scientific knowledge (Woolgar, 1987, 1989). Consequently, it may be the case that they are fundamentally incompatible perspectives. Therefore, contrary to the views of Shadish and Neimeyer (1989), a synthesis of the evidence from psychology and sociology may never be possible. However, if we advocate pluralism in science, we must, therefore, accept incompatible perspectives within science studies. Although psychology may inevitably have similar content and methodology with other disciplines, this overlap does not mean that psychology or the other disciplines are providing redundant information. Instead, each discipline can offer distinctive perspectives on a particular scientific phenomenon. Thus, the establishment of a strong programme within science studies may maximize the likelihood that cognitive psychology can offer unique insights into the characteristics of scientific discourse. Nor is a call for pluralism meant to suggest that a division of labor is recommended with psychology investigating the individual and sociology investigating the group (Nickles, 1989; Woolgar, 1989). Both psychology and sociology can offer explanations of the contributions of individual and social processes in scientific discourse. Freedman (1992b) has shown that four-person interacting groups evaluate multiple hypotheses better than individuals because groups generate tests that help them to eliminate incorrect hypotheses. In sum, a multidisciplinary study of science is advocated in which each discipline examines science based upon its assumptions, theories, and methodologies.Although psychologists have produced a substantial body of evidence concerning the cognitive processes involved in scientific reasoning (see Faust, 1984, for review), one relatively unexplored area within the cognitive psychology of science is that of scientific discourse. Scientific discourse has been studied almost exclusively by sociologists of science. Not only can cognitive psychology investigate scientific reasoning, but, it can also make important contributions to the study of scientific discourse. Cognitive psychologists have already developed well-founded theories of discourse processes (e.g., van Dijk & Kintsch, 1986). Interestingly, Potter and Wetherall (1987) excluded discussion of van Dijk and Kintsch in their review of psychological theories of discourse. As discussed below, these theories and methodologies should be applied to the investigation of scientific discourse. Because the cognitive psychology of science will need to develop a set of fundamental assumptions based upon those of cognitive psychology, it is necessary to discuss briefly some potential assumptions.Fundamental Assumptions of the Cognitive ApproachIf a cognitive psychology is to be applied to scientific discourse, it will be likely to make several assumptions. First, the cognitive study of science will focus on the description of scientist's actual behavior rather than establishing norms for appropriate behavior. This recommendation assumes that any prescriptions for science rests on an adequate description (Freedman & Smith, 1985; Neimeyer, Shadish, Freedman, Houts, & Gholson, 1989). Second, a cognitive approach to science should account for both the positive and negative aspects of scientific reasoning. Previous authors (Faust, 1984; Mahoney, 1976) have focused on the biases and errors in scientific reasoning. This research is important to demonstrate that the actual practice of scientific reasoning differs from the norms established by philosophers of science (e.g., Kuhn, 1962; Laudan, 1977; Popper, 1962, 1972). However, scientific reasoning clearly is able to draw correct conclusions and inferences. One of the failures of sociology of science is that it does not explain the apparent success of science (Giere, 1987). Thus, cognitive models of science should account for the positive and negative aspects of scientific reasoning and they should do so within the same framework. Third, a truly comprehensive psychological model must explain the various psychological activities in which scientists engage. Most researchers have been interested in isolated areas such as creativity (Langley et al., 1987; Simonton, 1988), hypothesis testing (Gorman, 1986; Gorman, Stafford & Gorman, 1987; Griggs & Ransdell, 1986; Hacker, Freedman, Gorman & Isaacson, 1990; Mahoney & DeMonbruen, 1978; Tukey, 1986), analogical and metaphorical reasoning (Boyd, 1979; Clement, 1981; Gentner, 1982, 1983) and imagery (Miller, 1984). As the cognitive psychology of science develops, a comprehensive model of how each of these cognitive processes relate to each other must be proposed. Fourth, the cognitive psychology of science must be consistent with the extant literature in cognitive psychology. This recommendation is based upon the assumption that although there will be differences between the specific representations and specific reasoning strategies of scientists and nonscientists (e.g., Chi, Feltovich & Glaser, 1981; Larkin, McDermott, Simon, & Simon, 1980; Voss, Green, Post & Penner, 1984), scientific thinking, nonetheless, depends on the same general cognitive processes which underlie nonscientific thinking. Finally, cognitive theories of scientific discourse will likely, although not necessarily, be computational models, in that, the discourse processes used in science should ultimately be able to be implemented on a computer (cf. Freedman, 1992a; Langley, Simon, Bradshaw, & Zytkow, 1987; Thagard, 1988, 1989; Thagard & Holyoak, 1985). Computational models of scientific discourse should simulate the cognitive processes used by scientists during discourse processing. For example, Freedman (1992a) applied Thagard's (1989) computational model of theory evaluation, ECHO, to explain the latent learning controversy.Although a wide range of methodologies will be necessary to study the cognitive psychology of scientific discourse, psychologists, almost exclusively, will likely make extensive use of experimental designs. Because experimental designs permit considerable control of a number of variables, experimental designs allow causal statements regarding the relation between cognitive processes and scientific behavior (Giere, 1989). In particular, psychologists can be expected to use experimental analogues of scientific tasks both with undergraduate populations (Freedman, 1992b; Gorman, 1986) and with practicing scientists (Griggs & Ransdell, 1986; Kern, Mirels, & Hinshaw, 1983; Mahoney & DeMonbruen, 1978; Mynatt, Doherty & Tweney, 1977; Tweney & Yachanin, 1985). Experimental tasks are not intended to be identical to the practice of actual science. Rather, the same psychological processes which are utilized in scientific practice, are accessed in laboratory tasks (Berkowitz & Donnerstein, 1982). Thus, psychologists are likely to continue to make extensive use of experimental methodologies. However, studying the scientific discourse may not always permit use of experimental designs. Consequently, other quantitative methodologies can be applied to scientific discourse. For example, repeated measures multiple regressions can be employed to scientific discourse in order to determine whether certain types of discussion (e.g., talk about theories) predicts to certain outcomes (e.g., theory change). Qualitative methodologies, such as protocol analysis (Ericsson & Simon, 1984), are also well-suited for the cognitive study of scientific discourse. Protocol analysis uses peoples' verbal reports as a means to determine their representations of discourse (Graesser & Clark, 1985) as well as their reasoning strategies (Ericsson & Simon, 1984). Qualitative methodologies may be especially appropriate as an alternative methodology to quantitative approaches. To the degree to which cognitive models of scientific discourse can be rendered computational, techniques from artificial intelligence (e.g., LISP programming) will also be applied to the study of scientific discourse.Aspects of a Cognitive Theory of ScienceEven though the purpose of the present paper is not to articulate a theory of science per se, any cognitive theory of scientific discourse would be expected to include the following characteristics. Explanations of scientific behavior will involve reference to scientist's mental states. Scientific knowledge is embodied in the mental representations of individual scientists. Cognitive or mental representations provide a symbolic expression of the contents of the world. Cognitive accounts differ from sociological accounts, in that, cognitive accounts view scientific knowledge as essentially individual rather than social in nature. Because mental representations provide a partial mapping of the relations manifested in the world (Holland, Holyoak, Nisbett & Thagard, 1986; Palmer, 1978), individuals may form different representations of the same domain. Scientists form mental representations for the variety of activities in which they engage. Besides representations of scientific concepts, scientists have representations of their instruments (e.g., computers, microscopes, accelerators, etc.), methodologies (e.g., experimental vs. correlational designs), and writing styles (e.g., APA, MLA). As described below, scientists' representations also influence their discourse with others. Cognitive scientists have developed a number of representational systems including schema (Rumelhart, 1977), scripts (Schank & Abelson, 1977), frames (Minsky, 1975), neural networks (Churchland, 1989), and mental models (Gentner & Stevens, 1983; Holland et al. 1986; Johnson-Laird, 1983). Because this paper is not intended to develop a particular cognitive theory of science, each of these representational systems should be applied to science (see Holland et al. 1986, for a good illustration) to determine which best describes scientific cognition.Mental representations can explain the nature of scientific theories. From a cognitive perspective, scientific theories are generated from scientists' representations of their domain (Churchland, 1989; Freedman & Smith, 1996; Giere, 1988). However, not all of a scientist's representation will be expressed in their theories. Rather, theories are instantiations of their representations. Consequently, theories underdetermine scientists' representations of their domains. Scientists' theories are used to generate mental models. Mental models are a representation of a particular situation (Gentner & Stevens, 1983; Holland et al., 1986; Johnson-Laird, 1983). However, unlike Holland et al, scientific theories are not simply equated with a set of mental models. Scientific theories provide abstract generalizations which are not tied to particular situations, where as, mental models generally depict particular situation. Thus, scientific theories provide the basis of mental models. Model generation is the primary means of theory change because empirical evidence is interpreted and tested against the mental models and subsequently the mental models are used to adjust the scientist's theories. Use of mental models answers the criticism of Potter and Wetherall (1987) that cognitive psychologists1 conceptualization of concepts and categories are too inflexible to handle the variability with which scientific concepts are used.Scientist's representations are modified over time as concepts are added and deleted. Scientists use a variety of reasoning strategies to mediate the construction and augmentation of mental representations. Scientific reasoning is context-dependent because it depends on the particular prior knowledge to select an appropriate reasoning strategy (Cheng & Holyoak, 1985). The flexibility of scientific reasoning can be witnessed by the fact that scientists have multiple strategies to draw upon and these strategies can be applied in a variety of contexts (Nowotny, 1973). Confirmatory and disconfirmatory reasoning strategies are two reasoning strategies used by scientists during hypothesis testing (Gorman, 1986; Gorman, Stafford & Gorman, 1987; Griggs & Ransdell, 1986; Hacker, Freedman, Gorman & Isaacson, 1990; Mahoney & DeMonbruen, 1978; Tukey, 1986; Wason, 1960, 1968). Analogical reasoning also plays a central role in developing cognitive representations in a new domain by mapping representations from a known domain to the new domain (Boyd, 1979; Clement, 1981; Darden, 1986; Gentner, 1982, 1983; Gentner & Stevens, 1983; Hesse, 1966). For example, to use analogical reasoning to construct a cognitive theory of science, psychologists use their mental representations of cognitive psychology to explain scientific behavior. Because analogies introduces new representations, scientists can generate new predictions that can be tested empirically. As Boyd (1979) argues, analogical reasoning is particularly relevant to scientific discourse because it uses language to express the causal structure of the world. As will be elaborated below, scientific discourse is one strategy used by scientists to produce changes in mental representations.A Cognitive Approach to Scientific DiscourseSociological accounts of scientific discourse (Collins, 1983, 1985; Knorr-Cetina, 1981; Gilbert & Mulkay 1984) emphasize that scientific knowledge is always constructed through social negotiation. Psychological approaches do not deny the social context of science, but, rather emphasize how scientists' cognitive capacities (i.e., mental representations) influence social action and interaction (Giere, 1987). Acknowledging the social context of scientific discourse, therefore, does not obviate the cognitive aspects of scientific knowledge. Indeed, mental representations are not reduced to social artifacts by acknowledging the role of interaction with other scientists because, from a psychological perspective, social interaction requires individuals with certain cognitive capacities (De Mey, 1981).Scientific discourse takes the form of both written and oral communication in both formal (e.g., journals, conferences) and informal (e.g., letters, conversation) contexts. A cognitive approach to scientific discourse will have to explain how cognitive processes are employed in all of these contexts. It is likely that specific cognitive processes are utilized during particular types of scientific discourse (e.g., written vs. oral). Unfortunately, a complete articulation of the way in which cognitive processes influence the specific contexts of scientific discourse is beyond the scope of this paper. Below is a general framework for such an approach. Implicit in the cognitive approach is the assumption that representations are formed through discourse with other scientists (and nonscientists). At the same time, scientists' representations influence their ability to interact with other scientists because they use their representations during the production of written and spoken language (van Dijk & Kintsch, 1986). Thus, the growth of scientific knowledge can be viewed as a reciprocally causal relation between scientists' representations and discourse with others.According to cognitive theories of discourse processing (van Dijk & Kintsch, 1986; Graesser & Clark, 1985), language is comprehended by constructing mental representations. Specifically, prior knowledge used to construct a mental model of the incoming discourse (van Dijk & Kintsch, 1986; Johnson-Laird, 1983). Furthermore, discourse comprehension is an ongoing process which operates both at a local or microstructural level and at a global or macrostructural level. At a microstructural level, each utterance is analyzed and encoded into memory. Macrostructural processes operate over a series of utterances to form a coherent representation by providing the summary of an extended discourse. Schematic processes, which also operate at a macrostructural level, provide expectations regarding the flow of information. van Dijk (1984) has suggested that scientists will develop schematic superstructures for the organization of particular forms of discourse (e.g., journal articles). For research articles, scientists expect the methods section to follow the hypotheses at the end of the introduction. Schematic superstructures are acquired as scientists are educated in their areas of research.The distinction made between scientists' declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge is also useful for understanding the cognitive processes utilized during scientific discourse. According to Anderson (1983), declarative knowledge corresponds to knowledge of "what" and procedural knowledge corresponds to knowledge of "how." Declarative knowledge in science is the scientist's wealth of knowledge of theories, models, evidence in his or her field. Bazerman (1985) demonstrated that scientists' declarative knowledge is used to determine which journal article they should read. To understand this article, one must have some declarative knowledge of social constructivism and cognitive psychology. Dee-Lucas and Larkin (1986) found that experts were much better at comprehending physics texts than novices because experts had elaborate declarative knowledge into which the information could be integrated.Comprehending scientific discourse also involves the use the of strategic or procedural knowledge which reflects an understanding of the how to execute tasks (e.g., writing a research article). In science, procedural knowledge often takes the form of an understanding of the rules and conventions of one's discipline. For example, citing the research that is the basis of an article is relatively more important in psychology compare to philosophy. At a macrostructural level, scientists, have procedural knowledge of how to organize a presentation at a research conference or how to write a paper on the results of experimental research. Carlson and Gorman (1988) have found that during the development of his telephone, Thomas Edison combined his declarative knowledge of electricity with his procedural knowledge of invention strategies. Scientists also have procedural knowledge for scientific discourse such as how to interact with other scientists at conventions (McKinlay & Potter, 1987). Berkenkotter, Huckin, & Ackerman (1988) found that a first-year doctoral student acquired considerable procedural knowledge of academic writing style during his first year of graduate school.Scientists also use their cognitive representations to communicate orally with other scientists. As scientists interact with one another, they form representations of the other scientists' utterances. The degree to which scientists share similar cognitive representations will influence their ability to communicate with each other. However, scientists do not have to have identical representations in order to communicate. Indeed, scientists engage in discourse in order to enhance their representation of their domain. Hacker, Freedman, Gorman, and Isaacson (1990) found that, to develop hypotheses during a scientific reasoning task, interacting groups used initial discussions of data to lead to discussions of possible generalization and then discussed the data again. Rather, scientists comprehend scientific discourse by integrating it into their existing representations. Communication is used to share information toward a convergence of cognitive representations. During discourse, the similarity of the communicator's representations may converge and diverge but with the goal of shared representations.Scientists' mental representations have a significant effect on the social structure of science (Bohme, 1975; Mullins, 1973). As Collins (1985) notes, small cognitive changes can have major consequences for the social network of scientists. Mullins (1973) argues that as theories develop so does the social structure of a discipline change. From a cognitive perspective, a scientific discipline becomes distinct when the particular mental representations of a group of scientists becomes distinct from those of other scientists. The assumption that scientists share similar representations is not intended to suggest that consensus exists within a scientific community. Gilbert and Mulkay take the lack of consensus within scientific communities to argue that social factors are relatively more important than cognitive factors. However, in his simulation of the latent learning controversy, Freedman (1992a) has shown that by adjusting the weight of various evidence, different mental representations of the same data can be formed. Thus, theories from cognitive science can be used to explain scientific debates. Furthermore, particular modes of argumentation (e.g.., theoretical debates vs. empirical debates) may be part of the cognitive representations of members of a scientific community (Bohme, 1975). Rather, scientists within a particular community share some overlap in their representations. In particular, there are probably certain core representations which all the members of a scientific community share (e.g., the concept of mental representation for cognitive psychologists). Additionally, although members of a scientific community share similar representations, this does not imply that representations are essentially collective (Potter & Litton, 1985). Mental representations are always held by individual scientists. Finally, it is not necessary for a scientist to advocate some concept to have a representation of it. For example, a cognitive psychologist can have a representation of social constructivism although he or she does not advocate it. The mental representation of social constructivism allows cognitive psychologists to read articles in sociological journals.Scientists pursue problems in order to elaborate and articulate the mental representations of their scientific community (Whitley, 1974). Based largely on the knowledge gained through scientific discourse, scientists in the natural (Chi, Feltovich & Glaser, 1981; Larkin, McDermott, Simon, & Simon, 1980) and social sciences (Voss, Green, Post, & Penner, 1983) use mental representations of their disciplines to solve theoretical and empirical problems. These findings allow individual scientists to generate the conceptual variations that permit the introduction of new representations into particular scientific community. Conceptual variation among members of a particular scientific discipline has an important role in scientific discourse because scientific theory choice is always conducted in the presence of competing mental representations (Freedman, 1992a; Thagard, 1987). These conceptual variations are introduced to the scientific community through producing discourse. The existence of different configurations of cognitive representations among individual scientists increases the potential that a particular representation can explain more about a particular domain than the competing representations. Because members of a scientific community share similar mental representations, only concepts that fit well into the mental representations of the community will be accepted (Simonton, 1988). Indeed, Bazerman (1981) has shown that physicists will read articles which fit within their mental representations. Similarly, Mahoney (1977) has found the operation of confirmatory biases in the peer review process of a major psychological journal. Thus, although conceptual variation is important for the growth of scientific knowledge, excessive deviation may not be accepted.A good example of how conceptual variations may be adjusted to fit within the representations of members of a scientific community is in the production of written knowledge. Scientific theories, reported in texts and monographs, reflect the prototypical representation and the individual scientists reflect the variations of the prototype. The scientific prototype is the central tendency of the conceptual variants of the members of the scientific community. Indeed, scientific "knowledge is institutionalized cognition" (Barnes, 1983; p 43). The process whereby individual scientist's representations are transformed into written knowledge is also a cognitive issue because scientists evaluate their representations.ConclusionsThis paper has maintained that the cognitive psychology of science needs to establish a research programme to study scientific knowledge. Psychology should avoid reliance on other disciplines for determining its research programme. This paper has also demonstrated that cognitive psychology can fruitfully investigate scientific discourse. A cognitive psychology of scientific discourse removes psychology from the study of the individual scientist's cognitions in isolation from others and it recognizes that cognitive processes are used to interact with other scientists and that interaction with others influences scientists' representations.Scientists construct mental representations of their domains. They also form mental representations of particular situations referred to as mental models (Gentner & Stevens, 1983; Holland et al., 1986; Johnson-Laird, 1983). Scientist's cognitive representations play a pervasive role in scientific reasoning because prior knowledge determines what strategies are appropriate. Changes in scientists' representations are dependent upon use of scientific reasoning strategies.Scientists' representations are crucial for discourse in that they determine what information can be communicated to other scientists as well as what information can be comprehended. Scientists' representations are also discourse-dependent to the extent that discourse influences the characteristics of the specific mental representations formed. Furthermore, scientists' mental representations are modified during scientific discourse. Thus, mental representations are constructed through discourse with others and representations influence discourse comprehension.Sociologists of scientific knowledge are not likely to accept the basic tenets of this paper. However, it was not the intention of this paper to convince social constructionists that the cognitive approach is correct. Rather, this paper was intended to argue that a cognitive approach to scientific discourse is warranted within science studies as a distinct discipline. Both a psychology and sociology of scientific discourse should be able to coexist within science studies. Indeed, not all sociologists believe that the constructivist thesis necessarily leads to a rejection of the cognitive approach (e.g., Woolgar, 1987, 1989). Besides, Woolgar (1987) notes that criticisms of cognitivism by social constructivists may be self-defeating since both approaches share a representativist epistemology, in that, language is assumed to depict certain states, social ones for constructivists, and mental ones for cognitivists. Furthermore, Woolgar (1983) has warned that the social constructionist approach has traditionally failed to recognize that it is also a social construction. One consequence of this oversight is that social constructivism may not respond to progressive theory changes. Thus, a psychological approach to scientific discourse is warranted in order to provide an alternate framework for understanding the nature of scientific knowledge.Still, several problems remain for psychologists, interested investigating scientific discourse, to solve. First, psychologists need to identify the specific areas of scientific discourse which could profit from psychological investigation. At a theoretical level, specific theories of scientific discourse will also need to be developed. The present paper, hopefully, has provided the framework for such a theory. Although this paper has focused on the role of cognitive processes in the comprehension of linguistic dimensions of scientific discourse, cognitive theories of scientific discourse will also have to account for the use of nonlinguistic information, such as imagery (Miller, 1984), during scientific discourse. Freedman and Smith (1996) found that subjects' prior theories influenced the interpretation of graphical display of data. Finally, this paper has only touched upon possible topics of research within the area of scientific discourse. Specific scientific discourse processes (e.g., written vs. oral) will have to be investigated before a comprehensive cognitive model of scientific discourse can be established. Relationship to other DisciplinesAlthough the cognitive psychology of science should be grounded in theories of cognitive psychology, this assumption is not meant to suggest that psychology should isolate itself from developments in other disciplines. In fact, extensive interaction between psychologists and philosophers, historians and sociologists of science is strongly advocated. The pluralistic position endorsed earlier in this paper demands that psychologists remain informed of developments in other areas of science studies. Indeed, as Freedman and Smith (1985) suggested, evidence from cognitive psychology may have a substantial impact on other disciplines such as philosophy (see, Giere, 1988, for a good example of this cross-fertilization of ideas) and it is likely that developments in other disciplines will have a significant impact on psychology [1]. Nevertheless, each discipline will be best able to contribute to science studies if they pursue research programmes based upon the fundamental assumptions of their own discipline while remaining informed of the developments in other disciplines.Collaboration between members of different disciplines may be the conduit for the establishment of interfield connections (Darden, 1986). Below is a list of some of the ways in which psychologists and members of other disciplines could collaborate. Psychologists are likely to draw heavily from communication science when investigating conversational discourse (e.g., Hacker, Freedman, Gorman, & Isaacson, 1990). Communication scientists have developed a number of specific methodologies to investigate group decision-making (Poole, 1983; Poole & Roth, 1989a, 1989b). Such methodologies can be applied to the study of role of cognitive processes in scientific communication.Fruitful collaborations between philosophers and psychologists could also be developed. Paul Thagard, a philosopher, and Keith Holyoak, a psychologist, have simulated how analogical reasoning was used to developed the wave theory of sound (Thagard & Holyoak, 1985). Historians and psychologists could collaborate to examine the process of cognitive change in historical cases (e.g. Carlson & Gorman, 1988). Such collaborations between members of different disciplines may help to elucidate the variety of contexts that cognitive processes influence scientific discourse.It is hoped that this paper may lead to the development of a cognitive approach to scientific discourse and that this approach may provide avenues for future research. Because the cognitive approach to scientific discourse is based upon a tradition of compelling theories of mental representation and discourse (e.g., van Dijk & Kintsch, 1986), it holds considerable promise for further work. If objections are raised to this paper then this paper will have succeeded in getting scholars to think further about nature of scientific discourse. Such debate is a sign of a healthy environment for the study of science. However, so long as there remains no articulated cognitive theory of scientific discourse, then there is no way to challenge current conceptions of the nature of scientific knowledge. |
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Portions of this paper were presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science, Amsterdam, Holland, November, 1988. I'm indebted to Steve Woolgar for suggesting to me that psychology ought to pursue a strong programme within science studies. Thanks also to Ken Hacker for his comments on earlier drafts of this paper.Requests for reprints can be addressed to Eric G. Freedman, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, University of Michigan-Flint, Flint, MI 48502 or electronically at freedman@umich.edu.[1] In fact, the cognitive psychology of scientific discourse is indebted to sociology for first recognizing the importance of analyzing scientific discourse. |
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