Cognitive Psychology in Crisis: Ameliorating the Shortcomings of Representationalism

Sammanfattning: Traditional cognitive psychology relies on concepts bordering idealism, an issue that has been known since the end of the 19th century. At best, the underlying assumptions are misleading and do not bring us closer to an understanding of human enterprise. Also, psychology in general is not a unified paradigm; its sub-disciplines rely on different conceptual bases. Ecological Psychology can change that. Getting rid of the non-sequitur “it is all in the brain” is a start and not that controversial, but, this is simply a stepping stone to a complete change in perspective. Organisms are born into an ever-changing environment, which they constantly interact with, perceive themselves in, constantly change and are changed by. An attempt is made to contrast computational and ecological assumptions about how the brain works by having participants intercept an object on a computer screen. Hypothesis is that participants will favour an ecological strategy over a computational. Results speak in favour of reliance on ecological assumptions rather than computational and also indicates that representations may not be necessary even for objects that are temporarily imperceptible.