The Growth of Multidisciplinarity in the Cognitive Science Society

In a case study of the growth of cognitive science, we analyzed the activities of the Cognitive Science Society with a particular emphasis on the multidisciplinary nature of the field. Analyses of departmental affiliations, training back-grounds, research methodology, and paper citations suggest that the journal Cognitive Science and the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society are dominated by cognitive psychology and computer science, rather than being an equal division among the constituent disciplines of cognitive science. However, at many levels, a growing percentage of work was found to involve a conjunction of multiple disciplines, such that approximately 30–50% of recent work in the Cognitive Science Society is multidisciplinary. In a questionnaire study of cognitive scientists involved in collaborative research, multidisciplinarity was found to shape the research process and affect the factors associated with successful research.

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