Thinking and Writing: Cognitive Science and Intelligence Analysis

摘要

The monograph has two parts: first, a survey of cognitive science as we understood it in 1984; second, suggestions for changing the way we do intelligence analysis in light of what the discipline was telling us. As I have indicated, I think the survey section holds up pretty well. While I would like to think the reader will learn something useful from immersion in all the detail (notably the diagram on page 10, which makes graphic the many elements that interactively shape our conscious mental activity), the basic concept is quite simple. The conscious mind cannot track more than about seven cognitive elements at the same time (cognitivescience jargon often refers to these elements as chunks); and to cope with this constraint, our brains constantly manipulate those elements, always at top speed and usually outside our conscious awareness.