Open Encyclopedia
of Cognitive Science
A multidisciplinary guide to understanding the mind. A freely-available, growing collection of peer-reviewed articles introducing key topics to a broad audience of students and scholars.
Published by the MIT Press · ISSN 3066-7879
Why an Open Encyclopedia?
The Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science provides freely-available, peer-reviewed introductions to key topics for students, scholars, and curious minds. Each article is written by leading researchers and reviewed by expert section editors, ensuring accuracy and accessibility.
Learn more about OECS →Explore the Encyclopedia
208 articles connected by 840 cross-references. Visualize the network, browse the matrix, and discover patterns.
Featured Articles
Discover peer-reviewed entries on cognitive science
Emotions, Moods, and Affective States
Nicole C. Rust
The phenomena that comprise emotions, moods, and affective states are united by their valence—their pleasantness or unpleasantness—such as the pleasure of seeing a baby laugh or the aversion to smelling feces. Beyond this broadly accepted defining characteristic, the researchers who study them have
Recurrent Neural Networks
James S. Magnuson
Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) are artificial neural networks that contain at least one loop that allows the network’s internal states to be dynamically influenced by its own previous internal states, in addition to any new external input. Formally, containing loops makes RNNs cyclic graphs; in th
Neuroscience of Language
Gesa Hartwigsen
Language is a key faculty for human communication. Across the last few decades, neuroimaging work provided insight into the contribution of distributed areas in the brain to different language operations, including the processing of meaning, sound, structure, and speech melody. These studies emphasi
Self
Adrian J. T. Alsmith
You are a self: the kind of thing that is a who, with all the dignity and responsibility afforded by that status, the kind of thing that has a distinctive perspective on events—on your past as you remember it, your future as you anticipate it, and your present as you experience it. Your grasp of the
Event Cognition
Jeffrey M. Zacks
Event cognition is the study of how minds and brains form, manipulate, store, and use representations of events. It encompasses event perception, event memory, and aspects of planning and action control. Events are a central feature of human experience, but they are somewhat under-studied compared t
Animal Culture
Carel P. van Schaik
Culture can be defined as all knowledge and skills acquired through some form of social learning—learning influenced by social input—and usually transmitted across generations. Its prominent role in generating the variation in time and space in human behavior and values has long been recognized and
“The OECS has pulled off the magic trick of transforming The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences into a renewed, dynamic online resource. The editors have thoughtfully focused on many of the most central topics in the field and have recruited key players to write well-crafted and informed entries. Supported by an excellent online interface run by The MIT Press, this constantly updated and expanding resource will become invaluable for the cognitive science community.”
“Systematically explore the science of the mind, or wander freely through its landmark topics––it’s your choice. Wherever you land in the OECS, you’ll find an authoritative yet accessible overview of key concepts and hot debates that make cognitive science an exciting field.”