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Updated: Dec 28, 2025

Perspectives on Neuroscience

Perspectives on Neuroscience

Published on: July 31, 2007

Cognitive science as complexity science.

Luis H Favela¹

¹Department of Philosophy and Cognitive Sciences Program, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida.

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews. Cognitive Science

|February 12, 2020

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Cognitive science faces methodological challenges due to nonlinear systems being analyzed with linear methods. A complexity science framework offers an interdisciplinary approach to resolve these tensions in studying cognition.

Keywords:

complexity emergence nonlinearity self-organization universality

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Science
Complexity Science
Interdisciplinary Studies

Background:

Cognitive science traditionally analyzes complex phenomena.
Methodological tensions exist between linear analysis methods and nonlinear cognitive systems.
Contradictions arise from traditional investigative approaches in cognitive science.

Purpose of the Study:

To propose cognitive science as complexity science.
To offer an interdisciplinary framework for investigating cognition.
To dissolve contradictions and tensions in cognitive science methodologies.

Main Methods:

Treating cognition as exhibiting emergence, nonlinearity, self-organization, and universality.
Integrating concepts, methods, and theories from systems theory, nonlinear dynamical systems theory, and synergetics.
Adopting a complexity science framework for cognitive investigations.

Main Results:

A unified framework for investigating, explaining, and understanding cognition.
Resolution of methodological tensions in cognitive science.
A common set of practices for studying complex cognitive forms.

Conclusions:

Cognitive science as complexity science provides a robust framework.
This approach resolves inherent contradictions in traditional cognitive science.
It enables a more comprehensive understanding of cognition's complex nature.