The cultural constitution of cognition: taking the anthropological perspective

Abstract: To what extent is cognition affected by culture? And how might cognitive science profit from an intensified collaboration with anthropology in exploring this issue? In order to answer these questions, we will first give a brief description of different perspectives on cognition, one that prevails in most cognitive sciences – particularly in cognitive psychology – and one in anthropology. Three basic assumptions of cognitive science regarding the separability of content and process, the context-independence of processing, and the culture-independence of processing will then be discussed. We argue that these assumptions need to be questioned and scrutinized cross-culturally. A thorough examination of these issues would profit considerably from collaboration with anthropologists, not only by enabling deeper insight into the cultures under scrutiny, but also by synergistic effects that would allow for a more comprehensive understanding of human cognition

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Frontiers in psychology. - 2 (2011) , 00067, ISSN: 1664-1078

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Freiburg
• (who): Universität
• (when): 2019
• Creator: Bender, Andrea ; Beller, Sieghard
• Contributor: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. Allgemeine Psychologie ; Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg. Abteilung für Sozialpsychologie und Methodenlehre

Further information

• DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00067
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:25-freidok-966927
• Rights: Kein Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 15.08.2025, 7:35 AM CEST