Fundamental Concepts in Scientific Methodology and Cognition

Fundamental Concepts in Cognition and Scientific Method

I. Cognitive Foundations

Perception comes from the Latin word percipere, which means collecting data about our surroundings and reality.

Abstract Intelligence: This capacity is reserved for human beings. Thanks to it, subjects no longer need to present things as concrete questions but can treat them as symbols or ideas.

II. Scientific Methodology

Experimentation and Discovery

Experimentation: This refers to a set of conveniently planned activities, often aided by mathematical formulas, designed to discover how things behave.

The Empirical Method and Hermeneutics

The Analytical Empirical Method holds the belief that it is possible to conduct a neutral and objective analysis of different cultures, civilizations, and societies. Its proponents argue that the same methods used in the natural sciences can be applied to social phenomena.

Conversely, Hermeneutics studies subjects of Social Science that are considered absolutely different from those studied in the natural sciences.

III. Psychological Processes

Imagination Types

• Reproductive Imagination: Occurs when the imagination collaborates in the process of setting, storing, and reproducing images that correspond to a previous perception.
• Creative Imagination: Occurs when the imagination is used to produce images that do not correspond to a previous perception, but are the result of the subject's creative elaboration.

Behavior and Learning

Instinctive Behavior is innate and not learned or amended by experience (e.g., breathing).

Learned Behavior: Defined by the incompleteness of innate behavior and the ability to be fully adapted to various situations and circumstances.

The Associative Learning Process is understood as the mechanism that originates or modifies behavior through experience (conditioning is a related method).

IV. Logical and Research Methods

Induction

Induction has two main types:

1. Complete Induction: Part of the knowledge where all individual cases occurring within a closed context are known.
2. Incomplete Induction: Supported by a number of individual proofs that do not cover all possible cases.

The Hypothetico-Deductive Method Steps

1. Starting Point: An unsolved problem is detected by observation and/or experimentation.
2. Hypothesis Formulation: One or more explanatory scenarios (hypotheses) are created for the observed phenomenon or detected problem.
3. Deduction: The problem is formulated mathematically, and consequences are deduced.
4. Experimentation/Testing: The proven scenarios are contrasted. If a hypothesis holds true in some cases, it becomes a law and is accepted as generally valid.

A Theory is defined as a set of related laws, often expressed mathematically.