UBC Library now has online access to the ejournal Cognitive Science: A Multidisciplinary Journal.
This is the official journal of the Cognitive Science Society, whose researchers hold a common goal: understanding the nature of the human mind. The Society promotes scientific interchange among researchers in disciplines comprising the field of Cognitive Science, including Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics, Anthropology, Psychology, Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Education.
Check out their list of top 10 classics from the journal (along with pdf versions of the papers.)
The top paper? Mental models in cognitive science by P.N. Johnson-Laird (1980). Click the link below to read the abstract.Abstract:
This article postulates that mental models differ from visual images and from propositional representations, and it presents evidence that corroborates the differences. It argues that reasoners use propositional representations of, say, spatial descriptions to construct mental models. It also argues that mental models rather than formal logic underlie syllogistic inference, e.g., some of the parents are drivers, all of the drivers are scientists, therefore, some of the parents are scientists. The article was the first in a journal to present a case for mental models as the end result of comprehension and as the starting point of deductive reasoning. This idea led to many subsequent investigations (see the mental models Website).
