ABSTRACT
Cognitive psychology used to be unified by an approach based on an analogy between the mind and the computer. Computational cognitive scientists develop computational models to understand human cognition. Today there are four main approaches to human cognition: experimental cognitive psychology; cognitive neuroscience; cognitive neuropsychology; and computational cognitive science. Each approach has its own strengths and limitations, which makes it useful to use converging operations. Cognitive neuropsychology is concerned with the patterns of cognitive performance shown by brain-damaged patients. In spite of the enormous contribution made by cognitive psychology, it sometimes lacks ecological validity, suffers from paradigm specificity and possesses theoretical vagueness. Computational models have increased in scope to provide detailed theoretical accounts of findings from cognitive neuroscience and cognitive neuropsychology. Computational models are often hard to falsify and they generally de-emphasise motivational and emotional factors. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
