Nancy J Nersessian
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 489115 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Nancy J Nersessian |
| NOMBRES | Nancy J |
| APELLIDO | Nersessian |
| FIRMA | NERSESSIAN N J |
| AFILIACIONES | Georgia Institute of Technology |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7164-5234 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 33 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 74 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 33 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1984 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2024 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
Why/how to study scientific thinking
Scientific research is a highly complex and creative domain of human activity. In addition to its intrinsic value, understanding scientific thinking provides insight into the creative potential of human psychological capacities, as they are imbedded in rich social, material, and cultural environments. I discuss findings from my own investigations using two forms of qualitative research suited to studying scientific thinking as situated in context…
Qualitative methods in philosophy of science
Rethinking Ethnography for Philosophy of Science
We lay groundwork for applying ethnographic methods in philosophy of science. We frame our analysis in terms of two tasks: (1) to identify the benefits of an ethnographic approach in philosophy of science and (2) to structure an ethnographic approach for philosophical investigation best adapted to provide information relevant to philosophical interests and epistemic values. To this end, we advocate for a purpose-guided form of cognitive ethnograp…
Rethinking correspondence
Mesoscopic modeling as a cognitive strategy for handling complex biological systems
Modeling complexity
Modern integrative systems biology defines itself by the complexity of the problems it takes on through computational modeling and simulation. However in integrative systems biology computers do not solve problems alone. Problem solving depends as ever on human cognitive resources. Current philosophical accounts hint at their importance, but it remains to be understood what roles human cognition plays in computational modeling. In this paper we f…
Modeling systems-level dynamics
The creative industry of integrative systems biology
Coupling simulation and experiment
Philosophy of and as interdisciplinarity
Building Simulations from the Ground Up
In this article, we provide a case study examining how integrative systems biologists build simulation models in the absence of a theoretical base. Lacking theoretical starting points, integrative systems biology researchers rely cognitively on the model-building process to disentangle and understand complex biochemical systems. They build simulations from the ground up in a nest-like fashion, by pulling together information and techniques from a…
Faraday to Einstein
Engineering Concepts
This article addresses “concept formation in the wild” through examining the relations between concept formation and physical and computational simulation modeling practices in two research laboratories in the bioengineering sciences. It argues that processes of concept formation and of building distributed cognitive systems are deeply entwined
Affective problem solving
Forms of Positioning in Interdisciplinary Science Practice and Their Epistemic Effects
Creating Scientific Concepts
An account that analyzes the dynamic reasoning processes implicated in a fundamental problem of creativity in science: how does genuine novelty emerge from existing representations? How do novel scientific concepts arise? In Creating Scientific Concepts, Nancy Nersessian seeks to answer this central but virtually unasked question in the problem of conceptual change. She argues that the popular image of novel concepts and profound insight bursting…
Creating scientific concepts
Dissenters in the Sanctuary
Critiques of cognitive psychology and cognitive science principally target cognitiv ism, defined here as doctrinal commitment to computational processing over internal representations as a model of human intelligence. This paper reviews the principal points of critique, but argues that some prominent efforts within cognitive science currently exhibit conceptual and methodological broadening, to the point of revision or rejection of the core assum…
Razonamiento basado en modelos y cambio conceptual
Model-Based Reasoning in Distributed Cognitive Systems
This paper examines the nature of model-based reasoning in the interplay between theory and experiment in the context of biomedical engineering research laboratories, where problem solving involves using physical models. These “model systems” are sites of experimentation where in vitro models are used to screen, control, and simulate specific aspects of in vivo phenomena. As with all models, simulation devices are idealized representations, but t…
The Distribution of Representation
What Has History to Do with Cognition? Interactive Methods for Studying Research Laboratories
We have been studying cognition and learning in research laboratories in the field of biomedical engineering (Nersessian, Kurz-Milcke, Newstetter & Davies 2003; Newstetter, Kurz-Milcke & Nersessian, in press[a]). Through our combining of ethnography and cognitive-historical analysis in studying these settings we have been led to understand these labs as comprising evolving distributed cognitive systems and as furnishing agentive learning environm…
Abstraction via generic modeling in concept formation in science
Nomic Concepts, Frames, and Conceptual Change
Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was published at the beginning of what has come to be known as “the cognitive revolution.” With hindsight one can construct significant parallels between the problems of knowledge, perception, and learning with which Kuhn and cognitive scientists were grappling and between the accounts developed by each. However, by and large Kuhn never utilized the research in cognitive science—especially in …
Kuhn and the Cognitive Revolution
Configurations - Volume 6, Number 1, Winter 1998
Rethinking Ethnography for Philosophy of Science
We lay groundwork for applying ethnographic methods in philosophy of science. We frame our analysis in terms of two tasks: (1) to identify the benefits of an ethnographic approach in philosophy of science and (2) to structure an ethnographic approach for philosophical investigation best adapted to provide information relevant to philosophical interests and epistemic values. To this end, we advocate for a purpose-guided form of cognitive ethnograp…
The Distribution of Representation
Nomic Concepts, Frames, and Conceptual Change
Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was published at the beginning of what has come to be known as “the cognitive revolution.” With hindsight one can construct significant parallels between the problems of knowledge, perception, and learning with which Kuhn and cognitive scientists were grappling and between the accounts developed by each. However, by and large Kuhn never utilized the research in cognitive science—especially in …
Modeling complexity
Modern integrative systems biology defines itself by the complexity of the problems it takes on through computational modeling and simulation. However in integrative systems biology computers do not solve problems alone. Problem solving depends as ever on human cognitive resources. Current philosophical accounts hint at their importance, but it remains to be understood what roles human cognition plays in computational modeling. In this paper we f…
The creative industry of integrative systems biology
Coupling simulation and experiment
Building Simulations from the Ground Up
In this article, we provide a case study examining how integrative systems biologists build simulation models in the absence of a theoretical base. Lacking theoretical starting points, integrative systems biology researchers rely cognitively on the model-building process to disentangle and understand complex biochemical systems. They build simulations from the ground up in a nest-like fashion, by pulling together information and techniques from a…
Affective problem solving
Conceptual change in science and in science education
Modeling systems-level dynamics
Aether/or
Forms of Positioning in Interdisciplinary Science Practice and Their Epistemic Effects
Model-Based Reasoning in Distributed Cognitive Systems
This paper examines the nature of model-based reasoning in the interplay between theory and experiment in the context of biomedical engineering research laboratories, where problem solving involves using physical models. These “model systems” are sites of experimentation where in vitro models are used to screen, control, and simulate specific aspects of in vivo phenomena. As with all models, simulation devices are idealized representations, but t…
Opening the Black Box
Philosophy of and as interdisciplinarity
What Has History to Do with Cognition? Interactive Methods for Studying Research Laboratories
We have been studying cognition and learning in research laboratories in the field of biomedical engineering (Nersessian, Kurz-Milcke, Newstetter & Davies 2003; Newstetter, Kurz-Milcke & Nersessian, in press[a]). Through our combining of ethnography and cognitive-historical analysis in studying these settings we have been led to understand these labs as comprising evolving distributed cognitive systems and as furnishing agentive learning environm…
Abstraction via generic modeling in concept formation in science
Rethinking correspondence
Kuhn and the Cognitive Revolution
Configurations - Volume 6, Number 1, Winter 1998
Child's Play
Although most philosophers are not aware of it, research in cognitive development and in learning in the last decade has made considerable use of the characterizations of the nature and development of scientific knowledge proffered by philosophers of science. In a “reflexive” move, Alison Gopnik proposes philosophers of science can profit from the research of psychologists investigating cognitive development-specifically from that group of resear…
Faraday’s ‘lines of force’
Aether/or
Conceptual change in science and in science education
The Method to “Meaning”
In his article, “Is Essentialism Unscientific?” (1988), Jarrett Leplin claims that I do not have sufficient grounds for rejecting the customary “philosophical method of discovery” that allows for the direct transfer of theories developed in the philosophy of language to science. While admitting that all attempts at transfer thus far have failed, he still maintains that method is sound. I argue that the wholesale failure of these attempts is reaso…
Particles and Waves
Through Measurement to Knowledge
Opening the Black Box
Child's Play
Although most philosophers are not aware of it, research in cognitive development and in learning in the last decade has made considerable use of the characterizations of the nature and development of scientific knowledge proffered by philosophers of science. In a “reflexive” move, Alison Gopnik proposes philosophers of science can profit from the research of psychologists investigating cognitive development-specifically from that group of resear…
Kuhn and the Cognitive Revolution
Configurations - Volume 6, Number 1, Winter 1998
Nomic Concepts, Frames, and Conceptual Change
Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was published at the beginning of what has come to be known as “the cognitive revolution.” With hindsight one can construct significant parallels between the problems of knowledge, perception, and learning with which Kuhn and cognitive scientists were grappling and between the accounts developed by each. However, by and large Kuhn never utilized the research in cognitive science—especially in …
Abstraction via generic modeling in concept formation in science
What Has History to Do with Cognition? Interactive Methods for Studying Research Laboratories
We have been studying cognition and learning in research laboratories in the field of biomedical engineering (Nersessian, Kurz-Milcke, Newstetter & Davies 2003; Newstetter, Kurz-Milcke & Nersessian, in press[a]). Through our combining of ethnography and cognitive-historical analysis in studying these settings we have been led to understand these labs as comprising evolving distributed cognitive systems and as furnishing agentive learning environm…
Model-Based Reasoning in Distributed Cognitive Systems
This paper examines the nature of model-based reasoning in the interplay between theory and experiment in the context of biomedical engineering research laboratories, where problem solving involves using physical models. These “model systems” are sites of experimentation where in vitro models are used to screen, control, and simulate specific aspects of in vivo phenomena. As with all models, simulation devices are idealized representations, but t…
The Distribution of Representation
Dissenters in the Sanctuary
Critiques of cognitive psychology and cognitive science principally target cognitiv ism, defined here as doctrinal commitment to computational processing over internal representations as a model of human intelligence. This paper reviews the principal points of critique, but argues that some prominent efforts within cognitive science currently exhibit conceptual and methodological broadening, to the point of revision or rejection of the core assum…
Razonamiento basado en modelos y cambio conceptual
Creating Scientific Concepts
An account that analyzes the dynamic reasoning processes implicated in a fundamental problem of creativity in science: how does genuine novelty emerge from existing representations? How do novel scientific concepts arise? In Creating Scientific Concepts, Nancy Nersessian seeks to answer this central but virtually unasked question in the problem of conceptual change. She argues that the popular image of novel concepts and profound insight bursting…
Creating scientific concepts
Affective problem solving
Forms of Positioning in Interdisciplinary Science Practice and Their Epistemic Effects
Faraday to Einstein
Engineering Concepts
This article addresses “concept formation in the wild” through examining the relations between concept formation and physical and computational simulation modeling practices in two research laboratories in the bioengineering sciences. It argues that processes of concept formation and of building distributed cognitive systems are deeply entwined
The creative industry of integrative systems biology
Coupling simulation and experiment
Philosophy of and as interdisciplinarity
Computer Science (24 obras) · Epistemology (24 obras) · Psychology (20 obras) · Philosophy and History of Science (19 obras) · Philosophy (16 obras) · Cognitive science (15 obras) · Sociology (15 obras) · Engineering (12 obras) · Philosophy of science (12 obras) · Artificial Intelligence (11 obras)