cognition

The concept of cognition focuses on the interaction between referential and non-referential >knowledge in fundamental actors. Given >bimodality, it starts out from the brain/mind dualism, so that in EE hypotheses about the interaction between cognition, decision and behavior are always related to the brain sciences. Furthermore, specific cognitive processes have to be explained by reference to the evolutionary origins of the underlying >rules/regularities. For a long time, cognition was approached mainly by formal computational disciplines. Recently, and very important for EE, the relation between cognition and >emotion has come to the fore, because the valuation of cognitive schemata is rooted in emotions with deep phylogenetic roots. Furthermore, the role of >creativity in cognition has been emphasized much more, such that cognition is viewed as a continuous process of blending of conceptual schemata, i.e. their recombination and re-integration to new units and into new contexts.

Cognition is governed by regularities that are mostly non-referential knowledge and result into the formation of rules that are partly referential. These rules are called cognitive schemes. Cognitive schemes are rule-guided ways to perceive the world, which implies that there is no direct mapping between mind and world. The world is constructed by the application of cognitive schemes. This cognitive construction is investigated by Evolutionary Epistemology and Evolutionary Psychology which are thus important contributing disciplines to EE.

Basic References
To get an impression of cognitive sciences in general, you may visit:
cognitive sciences at University of California
Gerd Gigerenzer's research unit

Semantic Field
knowledge
actor
perception   cognition   emotion