Broadening Cognitive Science in Nigeria: Foundation for a New Discipline

IF 2.4 2区心理学 Q2 PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL

Cognitive Science Pub Date : 2025-09-24 DOI:10.1111/cogs.70122

Chika Ezeugwu, Adebunmi Oyekola, Adejumoke Ayede, Members of the Nigeria Child Development Research Network

{"title":"Broadening Cognitive Science in Nigeria: Foundation for a New Discipline","authors":"Chika Ezeugwu, Adebunmi Oyekola, Adejumoke Ayede, Members of the Nigeria Child Development Research Network","doi":"10.1111/cogs.70122","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Cognitive science has matured into an established discipline, and its development has advanced our understanding of the human brain and cognitive processes. Despite these advancements and popularity, the limited established norms in the field have been in favor of cognitive universals, which is the idea that cognitive processes are consistent and shared across all humans irrespective of their sociocultural or environmental variations. This has limited the chances of improving and understanding variations in cognitive development, particularly among individuals from the majority of the world's population, and may have increased oversight into the unique characteristics of cognitive adaptations shaped by sociocultural and environmental factors. The objective of this paper is to draw insights from a 2-day workshop organized on broadening cognitive science in Nigeria. Inspired by the discussions from the workshop, we identified critical challenges and opportunities at the researcher, participant, and process levels, offering practical strategies for advancing cognitive science in underrepresented regions. We discussed the challenges facing cognitive science research and strategies to solve these challenges in Nigeria, particularly focusing on emerging themes from our workshop. We then discussed pathways for future directions and concluded with final thoughts.</p>","PeriodicalId":48349,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Science","volume":"49 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cognitive Science","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cogs.70122","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Cognitive science has matured into an established discipline, and its development has advanced our understanding of the human brain and cognitive processes. Despite these advancements and popularity, the limited established norms in the field have been in favor of cognitive universals, which is the idea that cognitive processes are consistent and shared across all humans irrespective of their sociocultural or environmental variations. This has limited the chances of improving and understanding variations in cognitive development, particularly among individuals from the majority of the world's population, and may have increased oversight into the unique characteristics of cognitive adaptations shaped by sociocultural and environmental factors. The objective of this paper is to draw insights from a 2-day workshop organized on broadening cognitive science in Nigeria. Inspired by the discussions from the workshop, we identified critical challenges and opportunities at the researcher, participant, and process levels, offering practical strategies for advancing cognitive science in underrepresented regions. We discussed the challenges facing cognitive science research and strategies to solve these challenges in Nigeria, particularly focusing on emerging themes from our workshop. We then discussed pathways for future directions and concluded with final thoughts.

Abstract Image

查看原文本刊更多论文

拓宽尼日利亚的认知科学：一个新学科的基础。

认知科学已经成为一门成熟的学科，它的发展促进了我们对人类大脑和认知过程的理解。尽管有这些进步和普及，该领域有限的既定规范一直支持认知共性，即认知过程是一致的，并在所有人类中共享，而不管他们的社会文化或环境差异。这限制了改善和理解认知发展变化的机会，特别是在世界上大多数人口中的个体之间，并且可能增加了对社会文化和环境因素形成的认知适应的独特特征的监督。本文的目的是从尼日利亚组织的为期两天的扩大认知科学研讨会中吸取见解。受研讨会讨论的启发，我们确定了研究者、参与者和过程层面的关键挑战和机遇，为在代表性不足的地区推进认知科学提供了实用的策略。我们讨论了认知科学研究面临的挑战以及在尼日利亚解决这些挑战的策略，特别关注了我们研讨会上出现的新主题。然后我们讨论了未来的发展方向，并总结了最后的想法。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Cognitive Science PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL-

CiteScore

4.10

自引率

8.00%

发文量

139

期刊介绍： Cognitive Science publishes articles in all areas of cognitive science, covering such topics as knowledge representation, inference, memory processes, learning, problem solving, planning, perception, natural language understanding, connectionism, brain theory, motor control, intentional systems, and other areas of interdisciplinary concern. Highest priority is given to research reports that are specifically written for a multidisciplinary audience. The audience is primarily researchers in cognitive science and its associated fields, including anthropologists, education researchers, psychologists, philosophers, linguists, computer scientists, neuroscientists, and roboticists.