a lopsided image of how the mind functions. In the following section, we dis-
cuss some problematic aspects of this approach to intellectual functioning
and development. In providing a critique of what might be called cogni-
tivism,^2 we are not negating the possibility of the potential of computational
modeling to simulate the mind in all its richness and complexity, including in-
tricacies of human motivation and emotion, as Tomkins (1963) envisioned
decades ago. Rather, we are referring to a general tendency in cognitive psy-
chology to build formal cognitive models of intellectual functioning and de-
velopment that do insufficient justice to the role of emotion and motivation
in specific functional contexts.
The first limitation of such cognitivism is its assumption of a pure cogni-
tive system of perceiving and thinking, free of emotion and motivation (or
treating them as peripheral or epiphenomenal). As Norman (1980) pointed
out, what is conspicuously missing in this account is the regulatory aspect
of the mind such as motivation and emotion. The result is an account of
thinking as fully disembodied, objective, mechanical, rational, and cold
(Labouvie-Vief, 1990). However, as Neisser (1963) pointed out a long time
ago:
- human thinking always takes place in, and contributes to, a cumulative
process of growth and development; - human thinking begins in an intimate association with emotion and
feelings which is never entirely lost; - almost all human activity, including thinking, serves not one but a mul-
tiplicity of motives at the same time (p. 195).
Overcoming this limitation means restoring the adaptive nature of intel-
lectual functioning and development. What has contributed to Kasparov’s
immense intellectual prowess in chess is not only his reasoning or pattern-
recognition capacity but also his motivation to win, and his emotional capac-
ity to feel, his metacognitive capacity to self-regulate, his ability to learn and
make self-corrections.
- BEYOND COGNITIVISM 5
2 2 The term cognitivism represents a broad movement in psychology in the second half of the
20th century known as the cognitive revolution (Baars, 1986; Gardner, 1985); it manifests itself
in many ways and does not have a simple definition (see Smith, 2001; see also Haugeland, 1981).
Yet the main thrust of this movement was to treat the computer, a mechanical computational de-
vice, as a model of the human mind, and its main tenet is rule-based symbol manipulation. For a
detailed critique of cognivitism, see Johnson and Erneling (1997). Cognitivism should not be
confused with cognitive sciences, which represent interdisciplinary efforts to understand the
mind, and cover all spectrum of cognitive, affective, and motivational issues, including the na-
ture of consciousness, intentionality, intersubjectivity, and self (see Wilson & Keil, 2001).