WORK IN PROGRESS
Please email me if you are interested in reading drafts of any of the papers below.
Longer, Smaller, Faster, Stronger: On Skill and Complexity
I argue that we have much to learn about cognitive skills by examining and applying to them some key characteristics of motor skills. In particular, I argue that cognitive skills ought to be developed through practice, where practice requires, at least temporarily, focusing on and attempting to improve the internal procedures by which a task is achieved. I maintain that, in motor skills, this kind of procedure or technique-oriented practice works in two ways: 1) by fusing together longer and more fluid sequences of action elements and 2) by breaking down those sequences into smaller, more manipulable parts. That is, as practice ensues, action procedures become both longer and smaller. Longer sequences become composed of smaller elements or, as I will put it, the sequences develop more joints. I explore how this dual-aspect process of skill learning has surprising implications for an almost universal empiricist view of complex cognition as the combination of simple conceptual building blocks.
I argue that we have much to learn about cognitive skills by examining and applying to them some key characteristics of motor skills. In particular, I argue that cognitive skills ought to be developed through practice, where practice requires, at least temporarily, focusing on and attempting to improve the internal procedures by which a task is achieved. I maintain that, in motor skills, this kind of procedure or technique-oriented practice works in two ways: 1) by fusing together longer and more fluid sequences of action elements and 2) by breaking down those sequences into smaller, more manipulable parts. That is, as practice ensues, action procedures become both longer and smaller. Longer sequences become composed of smaller elements or, as I will put it, the sequences develop more joints. I explore how this dual-aspect process of skill learning has surprising implications for an almost universal empiricist view of complex cognition as the combination of simple conceptual building blocks.