In his seminal work, Newell (1988, 1990) envisioned a unified theory of cog-
nition that is based on the human cognitive architecture as we know of, and
fully testable by way of computational formalism. In the process of “put-
ting it all together” (Newell, 1988, p. 428), however, motivation is hinted
(e.g., deliberate acts at the rational-level, thinking as action, progressive
deepening; see Newell, 1990) but not explicated in the architecture; emotion
seems to be completely left out (cf. Norman, 1980). We have argued in this
volume that putting it all together means treating cognition not as a neutral
system of perception and thinking with invariant properties, but rather, as
always embedded in specific functional contexts, directed, tinted or other-
wise altered by motivation and emotion, for good or ill. We see a different
kind of putting it all together in the preceding chapters, a more functionalist
(and presumably more realistic) view of how the human mind works under
adaptive challenges and in striving toward goals of personal and cultural
values.
Despite diverse perspectives presented in this volume, signs of convergence
are evident. We have witnessed much cross-talk, explicit and implicit, beyond
and across the disciplinary boundaries of differential, developmental, social-
cultural, motivational and cognitive traditions, encompassing the whole
spectrum of neurobiological, psychological-behavioral, and phenomenologi-
cal levels of analysis. In the following section, I make some further observa-
tions and extrapolations.
EPILOGUE
Putting It All Together:
Some Concluding Thoughts
David Yun Dai
University at Albany, State University of New York
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