Cognitive Science Quotes

The mind is not a blank slate; it has an innate structure that constrains and guides learning.

The computer is not a mind and it does not think. It is a tool that we use to simulate thinking.

The problem of intelligence is the problem of how to build an intelligent agent.

A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.

The hippocampus is not the repository of memory itself, but rather a critical structure for the consolidation of new memories.

Categories are not arbitrary collections of features; they are structured in terms of prototypes.

The great challenge for neuroscience is to understand how the brain, a physical organ, gives rise to the mind, our subjective experience.

We are not thinking machines that feel; rather, we are feeling machines that think.

The brain is a three-pound mass of jelly that can contemplate the cosmos.

The history of science is replete with cases where our common-sense ontology has been overthrown by a more powerful and accurate scientific theory.

The brain is not a computer. It's a biological organ, and it's much more complicated than any computer we've ever built.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste, but a terrible thing to have if you don't know how to use it.

Language is a window into human nature.

Memory is not a tape recorder. It's a constructive, reconstructive process.

My colleagues, they study artificial intelligence. Me, I study natural stupidity.

The human operator is not a simple channel, but a complex system with limited capacity and selective attention.

Cognition is the activity of knowing: the acquisition, organization, and use of knowledge.

We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development.

The capacity of short-term memory is about seven items.

A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.