![]() ![]() The brain’s compulsion to categorize presents certain unavoidable challenges to what can be learned about the natural world from human observation. There are ongoing debates about how categorization works, but the fact that it works is not in question. It then becomes possible to make reasonable inferences about that thing, to predict what to do with it, and to communicate our experience of it to others. To categorize something is to render it meaningful. Only some of the wavelengths of light striking our retinas are transformed into seen objects, and only some of the changes in air pressure registered in our ears are heard as words or music. Via the process of categorization, the brain transforms only some sensory stimulation into information. Categorizing functions like a chisel, dividing up the sensory world into figure and ground, leading us to attend to certain features and to ignore others. Categorization plays a fundamental role in every human activity, including science. Human brains categorize continuously, effortlessly, and relentlessly. The difficulty in linking the human mind and behavior on the one hand and the brain on the other is rooted, ironically enough, in the way the human brain itself works. ![]() Mind–brain, and relatedly, behavior–brain, correspondence continue to be central issues in psychology, and they remain the largest challenge in 21st century psychology. Throughout our history, the link between the social (mind and behavior) and the natural (brain) has felt less like a solid footbridge and more like a tightrope requiring lightness of foot and a really strong safety net. 1 Psychologists attempt bridge the social and natural worlds using the conceptual tools of their time. From its inception in the early 18th century (as an amalgam of philosophy, neurology, and physiology), psychology has always been in a bit of an identity crisis, trying to be both a social and a natural science. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |