Since the 1990s, there have been two major trends in cognitive anthropology: “society and practice”-oriented cognitive anthropology, as well as “mathematics and cross-cultural” cognitive anthropology.

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Cognitive anthropology focuses on how different groups of people organize and utilize culture. It studies the criteria specific to each culture and determines the way in which society interprets events, life and ideas. As an interdisciplinary research discipline that looks at the relationship between human culture and thinking, cognitive anthropology has formed a unique research approach after more than half a century of development.

 

Cross-cultural discipline
Peng Zhaorong, a professor from the School of Anthropology and Ethnology at Xiamen University, argues that cognition is the key to different perceptions and behaviors, and that people form groups of special cultural types. “Cognition” refers to means of understanding various relationships, especially the relationship between people’s thoughts and reality. Cognition involves classification and attitudes regarding things. For the same fact, there may be many completely different dimensions in different perceptions. Traditional cognitive anthropology focuses on the examination of everyday cultural knowledge as well as its origins and applications, and uses classification as a reference.

The emergence of cognitive anthropology is influenced by structuralist linguistics. Naran Bilik, a professor from the Center for Ethnic Studies of Fudan University, said cognitive anthropology began analyzing cultural knowledge in the 1950s and 60s. By the early 1980s, Schematic Theory replaced Primitive Theory, followed by a more abstract psychology theory on the nature of psychological representations, breaking the excessive dependence of thinking on language. Since the 1990s, there have been two major trends in cognitive anthropology: “society and practice”-oriented cognitive anthropology, as well as “mathematics and cross-cultural” cognitive anthropology. These two trends are often intertwined. Cognitive anthropology has so far not formed a unified theory. 

Cognitive anthropology attempts to explain how humans share knowledge and how human achievements spread across time and space, which determines the interdisciplinary nature of the research. Fan Ke, a professor from the School of Social Sciences at Nanjing University, said cognitive anthropology, ethnology and linguistics are often inseparable. Because anthropologists often engage in fieldwork among particular groups. They care about how locals understand their natural surroundings and their methods of classification. This requires scholars to have interdisciplinary knowledge. Cognitive anthropology is the product of the interdisciplinary development of anthropology.

 

Application research
The importance of cognitive anthropology lies in the fact it helps people understand how humans make sense of the world and themselves. Fan believes that the formation of cognition accompanies people’s growth, and people’s cognition of the society and the surrounding world have been achieved through the classification and construction of models. Cognitive anthropology cares about the knowledge of different groups and how “secret” subconscious knowledge alters the world around us that people perceive and reach.

Naran Bilik pointed out that at present, the achievements made in cognitive anthropology mainly include: a detailed and reliable description of cultural representations; a bridge built between cultural and psychological functions; and the use of various representations by humans as a form of cultural heritage that can be learned, while being psychologically influenced by these representations. As for humanities and social sciences, cognitive anthropology promotes cross-cultural communication, summarizes and absorbs the wisdom of mankind living with nature and society, and promotes the idea of symbiosis. In terms of natural sciences, it can enrich research content in related fields, such as neuroscience, widen the scope of artificial intelligence research, and promote the application of interdisciplinary research.

He added that the focus of recent developments in cognitive anthropology has been on cultural schemas that can be linked to action. The forms and methods of cognitive anthropology research have come to be quantified in recent years. Cognitive anthropology is no longer limited to looking for culture in society, but from outside to inside, finding culture and meaning in human’s minds.

Cognitive anthropology has many interesting new areas of research. Fan said at present, it is urgent to understand the scientific knowledge of a nation, which helps to classify how a nation classifies things. In the meantime, some folk knowledge that has accumulated for thousands of years that is peculiar to various ethnic groups should be collected and studied, which helps to explain the process of cognitive development and changes in these peoples. In addition, attention should also be paid to how the systematic and traditional knowledge systems and cognitive systems respond to globalization.

 

PAN YUEFEI is  a reporter at the Chinese Social Sciences Today.