Cognitive model

This article is about models of cognition's operation. For a model of external reality as modeled in the mind, see Mental model.

A cognitive model is a representation of one or more cognitive processes in humans or other animals for the purposes of comprehension and prediction. There are many types of cognitive models, and they can range from box-and-arrow diagrams to a set of equations to software programs that interact with the same tools that humans use to complete tasks (e.g., computer mouse and keyboard). In terms of information processing, cognitive modeling is modeling of human perception, reasoning, memory and action.

Knowledge about the representation of cognitive processes in humans originated in Philosophy. It relies on two opposing philosophical approaches, internalism and externalism, which together explain the nature of the mind and its relation to the body and the external world. From the internalist's perspective, the modeling of human perception, reasoning, memory, and action is independent of the external world. Current academic literature generally categorizes Internalism's cognitive models into three groups of representations of cognitive processes in humans:

  • Box-and-Arrow models, these models identify the components involved in cognition;
  • Computational Models explain the "rules" that govern how information moves between the structures defined above;
  • Dynamical systems focus on how the system changes every instant.

Philosophical ideas of Professors Andy Clark and David Chalmers have developed an externalist approach to modeling cognition, based on the active role of the environment in driving cognitive processes: extended mind thesis. According to this approach, because external objects play a significant role in aiding cognitive processes, the mind and the environment act as a "coupled system" that can be seen as a complete cognitive system of its own. Externalism is represented by the Mother-fetus neurocognitive model, which explains cognitive development in part as a function of the environment.

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