Paper Info
Title
Communicating Cognitive Science: Improving Awareness and Understanding Among People Who are Not Ourselves.
Abstract
Introduction As cognitive scientists, we invest enormous amounts of time in our graduate educations and careers learning to communicate our findings to others in the form of highly specialized research papers. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how the nuance and distinctions required to advance our science, or any science, could be communicated if such were not the case. However, our work is a public enterprise that is largely sustained by institutions that promise some return to the public good. In other fields, this return may be primarily in terms of ideas and insight into the human condition, as might be the case for archaeology and history. The return may be in new fundamental discoveries regarding our physical world, such as recent progress in nanomaterials that promise eventual translation into new forms of energy, transportation, and communication. Or it may be focused on the Pasteur’s Quadrant (Stokes, 1997) of research addressing an immediate practical need, such as an Ebola vaccine. We argue that Cognitive Science is a field where the return to the public good can take any and all of these three forms. Similar to archaeology or history we can promise increased insights into the human condition in terms of the nature of the mind, memory, and thought. In common with Physics, our fundamental research on the nature of cognitive control and the integration of perception, cognition, and action promises a long-term translation into applications and products for reducing cognitive workload and increasing human effectiveness. Likewise, in common with use insp i r ed medical researchers, we have a long tradition of applying and testing our ideas about learning and decision making by incorporating our research into tutoring systems, guidelines for teachers, and real-time decision aids. Although we strive to do the right things for the right motivations, many of us would have to admit, if pressed, that our public profile is slim to non-existent, both as individual cognitive scientists and as a global scientific discipline. It is unusual to find a person outside of academia who has any idea what cognitive science is. Most of us struggle to convey our objectives and results and relevance in a manner that is understandable by people without PhDs in the same specialty as our own. By contrast, some of us seem very successful at getting the word of our good works out. Some of our members author popular books or textbooks (an extremely important way of inspiring people to become members of the next generation of cognitive researchers!), participate in radio interviews, occasionally appear on TV, and write successful blogs. How do they do it? Can their methods be duplicated by others across the world so as to better communicate our aspirations, discoveries, and inventions to the world public? For this symposium, we brought together a group of people with a history of successfully getting the word out about their own and others’ cognitive science research. Following an introductory presentation by the organizers, this group of distinguished speakers will tell what they do, why they do it , evaluate its utility, and offer suggestions for the rest of us for communicating cognitive science in ways that improve awareness and understanding among people who are not ourselves.
Year
Venue
Field
2015
CogSci
Social group,Social psychology,Human condition,Public good,Good works,Cognitive science,Forms of energy,Psychology,Cognition,Perception,Decision aids
DocType
Citations 
PageRank 
Conference
0
0.34
References 
Authors
0
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Kevin A. Gluck17618.07
Wayne D. Gray2825133.25
Marsha C. Lovett37518.48
Arthur B. Markman44911.93
Jim Spohrer533.55