ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the basic concepts, statements, subject area and methods of cognitive science, including a list of cognitive science's subdisciplines. It provides the background needed to adequately address the two main alternative approaches to a theory of cognition in cognitive science: the classical symbol theory and the connectionist theory. The basic assumption is that a theory of neurocognition - in its structural core - can best be described by mathematical and logical computation operations. Cognitive science, which has emerged since the so-called "cognitive turn" in the human sciences, is as an integrative transdisciplinary research program, concerned with the study of mental, brain-based intelligent performances, abilities and skills of humans. The general assumption is that the neurocognitive models and the cognitive neuroarchitectures, with their structures, processes, and mechanisms, can be described or explained by computational operations, the so-called "computations", on the basis of formal transformations of certain representational structures, the so-called "representations" that is "computationalism" and "cognitivism".
