Mind, Body, World: Foundations of Cognitive Science
Though the textbook does cover the areas and ideas of the subject appropriately, I believe that it focuses more heavily on the computational side of the cognitive science field. Furthermore, the author states in the Preface that not only is this book geared towards senior level undergraduates, it should also only be used as supplementary material, which I completely agree with. The textbook also focuses more on the foundations of cognitive science, rather than the methodologies or recent empirical data on the topic.
Lastly, the textbook includes an index but not a glossary. In my opinion, a glossary would have been helpful as the concepts are more complex than most.
As a graduate student, I do not have complete mastery over cognitive science. However, many of the topics covered were familiar to me as I’ve learned about them in my classes. Therefore, all I can say to that regard is that to my knowledge, the content is accurate, error-free, and unbiased.
This textbook focused mainly on the foundations of cognitive science, therefore many of the texts cited were from before the early 2000s. Though this does not necessarily make the text obsolete, it makes it hard to incorporate later, more recent research. I would have liked to see more integration between earlier works and more recent research. For example, how does work in the field of cognitive science now tie in with the three approaches mentioned in the book? Is there one approach that is more popular than the others? What sorts of works done more recently have been used as evidence for or against some of these approaches?
Though the text is written well, I have strong opinions about the number of quotations used throughout. Rather than paraphrase, the author includes many, long direct quotations. In my opinion, this hinders understanding, especially when there is little explanation as to why this quotation is included. As an example:
“This doctrine has the goal of discovering the trigger features for all neurons (Barlow, 1972, 1995). This is
because,
‘ a description of that activity of a single nerve cell which is transmitted to and influences other nerve cells, and of a nerve cell’s response to such influences from other cells, is a complete enough description for functional understanding of the nervous system.’ (Barlow, 1972, p. 380)”
In this example, the author continues their sentence with a direct quotation. Therefore, the quotation provides the supporting explanation the author needed for their previous statement. However, rarely is it expanded upon further in the text. There is no more information for the confused student who does not understand this quotation. In consequence, the text moves along far too quickly, without taking the time to actually address the topic.
The text is very consistent in its terminology and framework. It referred to things using the same terms throughout, making it easy to follow along.
The book is mainly divided between the three approaches: classical cognitive science, connectionist approach, and embodied cognition. The last section (Chapters 6 & 7) focuses on Classical Music, which ties together the different approaches in terms of one sub-field. However, in order to understand the later chapters, one must first read through the previous ones. In other words, this book builds upon itself heavily; a student would not be able to understand what is happening if reading the last chapters first.
The book follows a logical order; it goes through the three different approaches, starting with classical cognitive science. This makes sense as it came first, hence its name.
On another note, I found it very interesting that the topic of vision is presented last. Many books focus on vision first as we know more about it compared to the other sub-fields.
The text is free of issues, and there was no distortion of any charts, images, or figures. However, I would like to point out the lack of figures in the book. In my opinion, any text could benefit from having more figures, especially in this case where there were so few compared to the total number of pages.
There were little to no grammatical errors throughout the text.
I cannot comment on the book’s cultural relevance as this is an issue that applies to the whole field of cognitive science itself. Because cognitive science focuses on the processes of the mind, there is little emphasis on race and ethnicity (except perhaps in regards to social cognition, which I am not familiar with). As a result, the text has little to no examples that are inclusive of these backgrounds. However, I can say that in no way was the text culturally insensitive or offensive.
Overall, the book was well-written. However, even as a current graduate student I was a bit lost sometimes. There is a huge emphasis on very specific details, which in turn makes it hard to form a larger picture. In my opinion, more summarization and integration are needed in order to fully convey the message this book is trying to achieve.