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 (see here for a summary of the project).
The Holy Trinity by Masaccio, 1425
Traditionally, cognitive scientists have ...
The cost of collaboration
The cost of collaboration: Why joint decision-making exacerbates rejection of outside information (article here)
Julia Minson and Jennifer Mueller
Existing research asserts that specific group characteristics cause members to disregard outside information which leads to diminished performan...
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 ...
New issue of the Journal of Cognition and Culture
A new and excellent issue (11, 1-2) of the Journal of Cognition and Culture. For the Table of Contents,
Cross-Cultural Preferences in Spatial Reasoning
Authors: Knauff, Markus; Ragni, Marco
Memory, Mystery and Coherence: Does the Presence of 2-3 Counterintuitive Concepts Predict ...
Exploiting the wisdom of others
Exploiting the wisdom of others: A bumpy road to better decision making (article here).
Ilan Yaniv and 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&...
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 ...
A new online journal of reviews in anthropology
ANTHROPOLOGY OF THIS CENTURY is a new free online journal "that publishes reviews of recent works in anthropology and related disciplines, as well as occasional feature articles". Judging from the first issue (see in particular the reviews by Charles Stafford, the Editor, and James ...
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 "...
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 resolu...