Stevan Harnad
Encyclopedia
Stevan Harnad is a cognitive scientist
.
, Hungary
. He did his undergraduate work at McGill University
and his graduate work at Princeton University
's Department of Psychology
. He is currently Canada Research Chair in cognitive science
at Université du Québec à Montréal
(UQAM) and professor of cognitive science at the University of Southampton
. He was elected external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
in 2001. His research is on categorization
, communication, cognition
and consciousness
and he has written extensively on categorical perception
, symbol grounding
, origin of language
, lateralization
, the Turing test
, distributed cognition, scientometrics
, and consciousness
. Harnad is a former student of Donald O. Hebb and Julian Jaynes
.
, of which he remained editor-in-chief until 2002. In addition, he founded Psycoloquy
(an early electronic journal
sponsored by the American Psychological Association
), CogPrints
(an electronic eprint
archive in the cognitive science
s hosted by the University of Southampton), and the American Scientist Open Access Forum
(since 1998). Harnad is an active promoter of open access (EPrints
, EnablingOpenScholarship (EOS), Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook (OASIS), SPARC
Campus Open Access Policies).
Cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
.
Career
Harnad was born in BudapestBudapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
. He did his undergraduate work at McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
and his graduate work at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
's Department of Psychology
Princeton University Department of Psychology
The Princeton University Department of Psychology, located in Green Hall, is an academic department of Princeton University on the corner of Washington St. and William St. in Princeton, New Jersey. For over a century, the department has been one of the most notable psychology departments in the...
. He is currently Canada Research Chair in cognitive science
Cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
at Université du Québec à Montréal
Université du Québec à Montréal
The Université du Québec à Montréal is one of four universities in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.-Basic facts:The UQAM is the largest constituent element of the Université du Québec , a public university system with other branches in Gatineau , Rimouski, Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec City, Chicoutimi, and...
(UQAM) and professor of cognitive science at the University of Southampton
University of Southampton
The University of Southampton is a British public university located in the city of Southampton, England, a member of the Russell Group. The origins of the university can be dated back to the founding of the Hartley Institution in 1862 by Henry Robertson Hartley. In 1902, the Institution developed...
. He was elected external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences is the most important and prestigious learned society of Hungary. Its seat is at the bank of the Danube in Budapest.-History:...
in 2001. His research is on categorization
Categorization
Categorization is the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood. Categorization implies that objects are grouped into categories, usually for some specific purpose. Ideally, a category illuminates a relationship between the subjects and objects of knowledge...
, communication, cognition
Cognition
In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...
and consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
and he has written extensively on categorical perception
Categorical perception
Categorical perception is the experience of percept invariances in sensory phenomena that can be varied along a continuum. Multiple views of a face, for example, are mapped onto a common identity, visually distinct objects such as cars are mapped into the same category and distinct speech tokens...
, symbol grounding
Symbol grounding
The Symbol Grounding Problem is related to the problem of how words get their meanings, and hence to the problem of what meaning itself really is. The problem of meaning is in turn related to the problem of consciousness, or how it is that mental states are meaningful...
, origin of language
Origin of language
The origin of language is the emergence of language in the human species. This is a highly controversial topic. Empirical evidence is so limited that many regard it as unsuitable for serious scholars. In 1866, the Linguistic Society of Paris went so far as to ban debates on the subject...
, lateralization
Lateralization of brain function
A longitudinal fissure separates the human brain into two distinct cerebral hemispheres, connected by the corpus callosum. The sides resemble each other and each hemisphere's structure is generally mirrored by the other side. Yet despite the strong anatomical similarities, the functions of each...
, the Turing test
Turing test
The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour. In Turing's original illustrative example, a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with a human and a machine designed to generate performance indistinguishable from that of a human being. All...
, distributed cognition, scientometrics
Scientometrics
Scientometrics is the science of measuring and analysing science. In practice, scientometrics is often done using bibliometrics which is a measurement of the impact of publications. Modern scientometrics is mostly based on the work of Derek J. de Solla Price and Eugene Garfield...
, and consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
. Harnad is a former student of Donald O. Hebb and Julian Jaynes
Julian Jaynes
Julian Jaynes was an American psychologist, best known for his book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind , in which he argued that ancient peoples were not conscious....
.
Activities in academic publishing
In 1978, Harnad was the founder of Behavioral and Brain SciencesBehavioral and Brain Sciences
Behavioral and Brain Sciences is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of Open Peer Commentary founded in 1978 by Stevan Harnad and published by Cambridge University Press...
, of which he remained editor-in-chief until 2002. In addition, he founded Psycoloquy
Psycoloquy
Psycoloquy was a refereed international, interdisciplinary open access journal sponsored from 1990-2002 by the American Psychological Association and indexed by APA's PsycINFO and the Institute for Scientific Information....
(an early electronic journal
Electronic journal
Electronic journals, also known as ejournals, e-journals, and electronic serials, are scholarly journals or intellectual magazines that can be accessed via electronic transmission. In practice, this means that they are usually published on the Web...
sponsored by the American Psychological Association
American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...
), CogPrints
CogPrints
CogPrints is an electronic archive in which authors can self-archive papers in any area of Cognitive Science, including Psychology, Neuroscience, and Linguistics, and many areas of Computer Science , Philosophy , Biology CogPrints is an electronic archive in which authors can self-archive papers in...
(an electronic eprint
Eprint
An eprint is a digital version of a research document that is accessible online, whether from a local Institutional, or...
archive in the cognitive science
Cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
s hosted by the University of Southampton), and the American Scientist Open Access Forum
American Scientist Open Access Forum
The American Scientist Open Access Forum is the longest-standing online discussion forum on Open Access...
(since 1998). Harnad is an active promoter of open access (EPrints
EPrints
EPrints is a free and open source software package for building open access repositories that are compliant with the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. It shares many of the features commonly seen in Document Management systems, but is primarily used for institutional...
, EnablingOpenScholarship (EOS), Open Access Scholarly Information Sourcebook (OASIS), SPARC
SPARC
SPARC is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Sun Microsystems and introduced in mid-1987....
Campus Open Access Policies).
See also
- Chinese roomChinese roomThe Chinese room is a thought experiment by John Searle, which first appeared in his paper "Minds, Brains, and Programs", published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 1980...
- CogPrintsCogPrintsCogPrints is an electronic archive in which authors can self-archive papers in any area of Cognitive Science, including Psychology, Neuroscience, and Linguistics, and many areas of Computer Science , Philosophy , Biology CogPrints is an electronic archive in which authors can self-archive papers in...
- Computational theory of mindComputational theory of mindIn philosophy, the computational theory of mind is the view that the human mind is an information processing system and that thinking is a form of computing. The theory was proposed in its modern form by Hilary Putnam in 1961 and developed by Jerry Fodor in the 60s and 70s...
- Institutional repositoryInstitutional repositoryAn Institutional repository is an online locus for collecting, preserving, and disseminating - in digital form - the intellectual output of an institution, particularly a research institution....
- John SearleJohn SearleJohn Rogers Searle is an American philosopher and currently the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.-Biography:...
- Open peer commentaryOpen Peer CommentaryOpen peer commentary consists of eliciting non-anonymous commentary on a peer-reviewed "target article" from a dozen or more specialists across disciplines, co-published with the author's response. It was first implemented by the anthropologist Sol Tax, who founded the journal Current...
- Open access mandateOpen access mandateAn Open Access Self Archiving Mandate is a policy—adopted by a research institution , a research funder or a government—that requires researchers to make their published, peer-reviewed journal and conference papers open access by depositing their final,...
- Peer reviewPeer reviewPeer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
- Quote/commentaryQuote/commentaryQuote/commentary is a form of interaction in email and other modes of online communication consisting of cut and pasted passages of text followed by commentary focussed specifically on the excerpted passage...
- Scholarly SkywritingScholarly SkywritingScholarly skywriting is a term coined by cognitive scientist Stevan Harnad describing the combination of multiple email and a topic threaded web archive such as a newsgroup, electronic mailing list, hypermail, netnews or Internet forum, linked and sortable by date, author, or subject-heading threads...
- Student SkywritingStudent SkywritingStudent skywriting is scholarly skywriting done in a teaching/learning context. The idea is to deepen students' interaction with texts by not only having them read them and do essays on them, but also to do interactive quote/commentary on them...
- Subversive ProposalSubversive ProposalThe "Subversive Proposal" was an Internet by Stevan Harnad on calling on all authors of "esoteric" writings—written only for research impact, not for royalty income—to archive them free for all online...
External links
- Interview by Richard Poynder
- Open Access Archivangelism Blog, Stevan Harnad's blog on Open Access
- list of publications by Harnad as given on Archipel , Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)