Page "Cognitive science" Paragraph 9

A central tenet of cognitive science is that a complete understanding of the mind / brain cannot be attained by studying only a single level.

An example would be the problem of remembering a phone number and recalling it later.

One approach to understanding this process would be to study behavior through direct observation.

A person could be presented with a phone number, asked to recall it after some delay.

Then the accuracy of the response could be measured.

Another approach would be to study the firings of individual neurons while a person is trying to remember the phone number.

Neither of these experiments on their own would fully explain how the process of remembering a phone number works.

Even if the technology to map out every neuron in the brain in real-time were available, and it were known when each neuron was firing, it would still be impossible to know how a particular firing of neurons translates into the observed behavior.

Thus an understanding of how these two levels relate to each other is needed.

The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience says “ the new sciences of the mind need to enlarge their horizon to encompass both lived human experience and the possibilities for transformation inherent in human experience .” This can be provided by a functional level account of the process.

Studying a particular phenomenon from multiple levels creates a better understanding of the processes that occur in the brain to give rise to a particular behavior.