from month 05/2011

Theology and cognitive science

In the next academic year, I will be a research follow at the University of Oxford on a project that examines the implications of cognitive science of religion for theology. Traditionally, cognitive scientists have argued for a large cognitive divide between folk religion and theology. Folk ...

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The cost of collaboration

The cost of collaboration: Why joint decision-making exacerbates rejection of outside information (link to the article) Julia Minson & Jennifer Mueller Existing research asserts that specific group characteristics cause members to disregard outside information which leads to diminished ...

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Do people ever engage in “magical thinking” ?

Would you enjoy your cocktail less, if it came in a glass labelled “vomit”? One solid result of cognitive psychology, or so it would seem, is that most people, regardless of education, opinion or personality, can be induced to think in magical terms given the appropriate stimuli and conditio...

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Exploiting the wisdom of others

Exploiting the wisdom of others: A bumpy road to better decision making (link to the article) Ilan Yaniv & Shoham Choshen-Hillel While decision makers often consult other people’s opinions to improve their decisions, they fail to do so optimally. One main obstacle to incorporating others...

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David Hume, the anthropologist, born May 7, 1711

David Hume, described in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as "the most important philosopher ever to write in English," was born 300 years ago. All anthropologists should celebrate one of the greatest Founding Fathers of the discipline (but will they?), and we at the Cognition and Culture ...

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Patrick Suppes Prize for Nancy Nersessian

Nancy Nersessian has been awarded the inaugural Patrick Suppes Prize for Philosophy of Science. This award to Nancy Nersessian is a nice recognition of what can be done with interdisciplinary approaches taking into account both cognition and culture. Indeed, her work consists in describing "the ...

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Bradley Franks’ Culture and Cognition

A new and important book by Bradley Franks: Culture and Cognition: Evolutionary Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). The blurb: "Human culture depends on human minds for its creation, meaning and exchange. But minds also depend on culture for their contents and processes. Past resolutions to ...

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