This Research Topic aimed at deepening our understanding of the levels and explanations that are of interest for cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, psychologists, behavioral scientists, and philosophers of science. Indeed, contemporary developments in neuroscience and psychology suggest that scientists are likely to deal with a multiplicity of levels, where each of the different levels entails laws of behavior appropriate to that level (Berntson et al., 2012). Also, gathering and modeling data at the different levels of analysis is not sufficient: the integration of information across levels of analysis is a crucial issue. Given such state of affairs, a number of interesting questions arise. How can the autonomy of explanatory levels be properly understood in behavioral explanation? Is reductionism a satisfactory strategy? How can high-level and low-level models be constrained in order to be actually explanatory of both behavioral and neurological or molecular evidence? What is the kind of relationship between those models?

Coping with levels of explanation in the behavioral sciences / G. Boccignone, R. Cordeschi. - In: FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY. - ISSN 1664-1078. - 6(2015 Feb), pp. 213.1-213.2. [10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00213]

Coping with levels of explanation in the behavioral sciences

G. Boccignone
Primo
;
2015

Abstract

This Research Topic aimed at deepening our understanding of the levels and explanations that are of interest for cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, psychologists, behavioral scientists, and philosophers of science. Indeed, contemporary developments in neuroscience and psychology suggest that scientists are likely to deal with a multiplicity of levels, where each of the different levels entails laws of behavior appropriate to that level (Berntson et al., 2012). Also, gathering and modeling data at the different levels of analysis is not sufficient: the integration of information across levels of analysis is a crucial issue. Given such state of affairs, a number of interesting questions arise. How can the autonomy of explanatory levels be properly understood in behavioral explanation? Is reductionism a satisfactory strategy? How can high-level and low-level models be constrained in order to be actually explanatory of both behavioral and neurological or molecular evidence? What is the kind of relationship between those models?
human behavior; levels of explanation; neuroscientific models; functional models; computational models; cognitive architectures; mechanisms; reductionism
Settore ING-INF/05 - Sistemi di Elaborazione delle Informazioni
Settore M-PSI/01 - Psicologia Generale
Settore M-FIL/02 - Logica e Filosofia della Scienza
feb-2015
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/265616
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