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[1] Introduction to Cognitive Anthropology - handout 

[2] Introduction to Cognitive Anthropology - PP presentation    

This lecture introduced cognitive anthropology by asking how cognitive anthropologists distinguish themselves from other anthropologists and from psychologists. Cognitive psychologists argue that the standard model of cognition in anthropology is usually implicit, is vague and ambiguous, and is in conflict with scientific models of cognition on many points. But while anthropologists tend to be  mind-blind, cognitive anthropologists argue, psychologists are context-blind. The attempt to exclude culturally variable context from experiments prevents psychologists from providing what cognitive anthropology promises: an ethnographic conception of the mind.

The cognitive anthropological synthesis aspires to combine the scientific rigour of psychology with the comparative, context rich perspective of anthropology.