Introduction

 

When did comm studies begin?

In "A Brief History of Memory Research," Gordon H. Bower writes in a section subtitled "Cognitive Psychology" that one of its antecedents was "information (communication) theory, with its concepts of encoding and decoding messages, and the concept of 'limited capacity,' which applied to any communication channel" (14). For Bower, communication theory provided the model of communicative situations to Claude Shannon, George Miller, and Colin Cherry, who were influential in both information theory and communicatin theory.

From the perspective of Cognitive Science (CS) the study of communication can be said to begin with Wilbur Scrhamm's discovery that the questions raised by Harold Lasswell's communication model—"Who says what, to whom via what channels, with what effect?" could only be answered with respect to specific situations. Tthe exigencies of persuading the American public to support the war effort could only be dealt with by analyzing the situation. Schramm helped draft Roosevelt's fireside chats, giving him direct experience of what needed to be said to whom via the radio in order to produce the effect of supporting the war effort in a specific way—buying war bonds, not buying nylons from the black market.. The underlying principle in these early studies was simply that the exigencies of the situation had to be acknowledged in the text of the message for its favorable reception.  Of course, not every communication situation is governed by an exigency such as WWII. Nonetheless, communications arise from "interests" however minor. They are the "spark," so to speak, that ignites discourse. Without some element of the situation to "spark" it, discourse would not occur. (See the appendix on "Sparks of Interest in Situations Ignite Discourse." Also see A Companion to CS, page 67 on researching situations.)

despite the "same" origins , Comm studies separated from cs

Despite the initial crossover of models of information processing in research on mass communication, current introductions to cognitive science do not include the study of communication among the disciplines that form its network of researchers. Since Cognitive Science is widely regarded as the study of how the mind works, texts that offer overviews of it feature research in a variety of fields on the mind. This suggests that Communication scholars do not or cannot conduct research on how the mind works.

The "disciplines"mentioned are usually cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, philosophy, and anthropology. While it is easy to understand how the first three disciplines study how the mind works, it is less obvious how the last three—linguistics, philosophy, anthropology—do. Until recently, Chomsky's view of language, which includes the theorem that language is a separate cognitive module, was predominant in cognitive science. More recently, cognitive linguistics—an alternative view of way language is linked to cognition—has been included. Various aspects of philosophy have contributed to a computational view of the mind—symbolic logic and speech act theory. Both of these fields provide logical structures for describing representations of mental models. Anthropology supplies a cultural context for cognitive science on issues regarding the varience or invarience of cognition.

the omnipresence of communicating

In their Introduction to Cognition and Communication, Keith Stenning (Informatics), Alex Lascarides (Computational Linguistics), and Jo Calder (Mekon Ltd.) note that: "There is not much in the way of human doings that does not involve communication, or cannot be construed as communication—very little that can be understood without understanding some communication." (3, italics mine.) However, they do not refer to any research conducted in communication studies that contributes to Cognitive Science research. 

the compartmentalization of research

Departmentalization and the correlative organizational structure, disciplines, have forced researchers into compartmentalization.  The emergence of cognitive science as a viable institutional matrix can be understood as a means to restructure inquiries.  In the 19th century, broad fields of study like philosophy were broken down into specialties such as psychology, sociology, anthropology.  Broad fields such as Literature were broken down into language departments.  The needs of the time were for specialized inquiries.

However, the economics of housing the specialized inquiries was carried out through departmentalization.  When the interests of philosophers like William James were psychological, departments of psychology emerged to re-distribute the available resources in new hierarchies.  After a century of development, psychology departments have produced considerable revenue through grants, while philosophy departments have not and were downsized.  Lost in the shuffle is the historical circumstance that psychological, sociological, anthropological and other research endeavors emerged from philosophic inquiries.  In the triumph of specialization, broader perspectives have become an endangered species.

The 21st century needs to balance the structure of inquiry.  Rather than break broad inquiries into specialized ones, the need is to bring specialists together to undertake broader inquiries.  The map of inquiry is being redrawn in this century. 

Presently, linguistic, psychological, and neuroscientific research looks familiar in as much as it still has strong ties to earlier work.  So, their work, when matched to the work of communication researchers will seem to be swallowed up.  This is merely an illusion.  Just as it is not the case, the studies of the brain have been swallowed up by studies of the mind, it is not the case that they will be swallowed up by communication research.  It is simply a remapping of a conceptual network in which the concepts are not competing for status. 

what would comm research bring to cognitive science?

In their "The LIfe of Cognitive Science," William Bechtel, Adele Abrahamsen, and George Graham characterize cognitive sicence in the following terms:

Cognitive science is the multidisciplinary scientific study of cognition and its role in intelligent agency.  It examines what cognition is, what it does, and how it works. (A Companion to Cognitive Science, 3. Italics and boldface mine.)

Cognitive science researches recognized that, since cognitive abilities are mental abilities, the work of neuroscientists needs to be matched against the work of psychologists.  But the remapping did not stop there.  Since the use of language is such a prominent cognitive ability, the work of linguists can be matched with the work of psychologists and neuroscientists, and so on.  Thus if cognitive abilities are largely communicative abilities, the work of communication researchers can be matched with the work of cognitive scientists.

The broader perspective of communication research can "map" the collaborations of specialists. 

"There is not much in the way of human doings that does not involve communication, or cannot be construed as communication—very little that can be understood without understanding some communication." (Introduction to Cognition and Communication, 3.  Italics mine.)

Communication researchers can contribute a needed perspective to those other studies, namely, situating them in a broader context.  As Keith Stenning, Alex Lascarides, and Jo Calder  recognize, cognitive sciences study components of communication. 

The question thus arises: can communication scholars contribute to research on the mind? There are many areas of communication research that are already or can appropriately study the operations of the mind in ways that correlate to researches conducted in cognitive science. Moreover, since cognitive scientists are increasingly recognizing the need to study the mind as it is situated in experience, communication studies provides the framework of a concpetual domain that already researches communication situations. Most of the research in communication studies is related to the exigencies of the situation in which communication takes place. What is missing is relating this research to cognitive science research.

Metaphorically speaking, whereas cognitive science research mostly takes place indoors in labs that conduct highly specialized experimental inquiries, communication research looks outdoors at what is happening in everyday practices of communicating. 

symbolizing links conceptualizing to communicating

In a recent summary of his Cognitive Grammar, Ronald Langacker notes that grammar:

... reflects our basic experience of moving, perceiving, and acting on the world. At the core of grammatical meanings are mental operations inherent in these elemental components of moment-to-moment living. When properly analyzed, therefore, grammar has much to tell us about both meaning and cognition. (Cognitive Grammar, 4-5.)

His work shows how basic cognitive operations inform communicating.  (See "Cognitive Operations" in this web site.)  It is important to note that Langacker as do most linguists view linguistic expressions as empirical data.  As Langacker points out:

Cognitive semantics provides an array of tools allowing precise, explicit descriptions for essential aspects of conceptual structure. These descriptions are based on linguistic evidence and potentially subject to empirical verification. (Cognitive Grammar, 4)

Except for some brief remarks about discourse, Langacker is concerned with sentences.  Several Critical Discourse Analysts, however, use cognitive linguistics as a theoretical basis for their work.   The extension of cognitive linguistics to discourse analysis directly links conceptualizing to communicating.  Despite the circumstance that many communication textbooks retain the term "message" in their models, most communicating occurs at the level of discourse. 

Many Comm departments offer courses in "discourse analysis." Moreover, "frame analysis," which is a species of discourse analysis (see Deborah Tannen's Framing in Discourse), it would contract all the texts I know about this analytic mode if Comm researcher did "messsage analysis" of discursive symbolization.

Notes:

.The parenthetical gloss, "information (communication) theory" is Bower's. The information processing model of communication situations marks the link between Schramm's view of Comm Studies and Cognitive Science.

  The concept of a "discipline" in this essay should be understood in Dudley Shapere's sense of a "conceptual domain."  See Shapere, D. (1977). "Scientific Theories and Their Domains." The Structure of Scientific Theories. F. Suppe. Urbana, IL, U of Illinois P.: 518-565.  

. See Cognitive Linguistics in Critical Discourse Analysis: Application and Theory. C. Hart and D. Lukeš. Newcastle, UK, Cambrige Scholars Publishing.  In particular, Hart, C. (2007). "Critical Discourse Analysis and Conceptualization: Mental Spaces, Blended Spaces, and Discourse Spaces in the British National Party," 107-131.

What counts as a CS perspective?  Given the emphasis on "expressions" as the outcomes of conceptualizing, the main perspective is CL.  From this perspective, the "expectation of discreteness in language" usage is challenged.  See L 13