The Development of Cognitive Anthropology

Rating:
Summary: From cultural categories to connectionist models
Review: D'Andrade's Development of Cognitive Anthropology provides a much-needed historical overview of this branch of psychological anthropology since the 1950s. It is especially useful for two reasons. First, it draws together studies from a diverse set of related fields: cross-cultural psychology, psycholinguistics, developmental psychology, ethnoscience and late structuralist anthropology, and modern connectionist theory in cognitive psychology. Cognitive anthropologists, unlike most other socio-cultural anthropologists, have tended to produce articles in specialist journals, rather than accessible books. (This is now changing, with several excellent books published in the 1990s by D'Andrade, Claudia Strauss, Naomi Quinn, and Bradd Shore, among others.) This book provides a summary of our knowledge about cross-cultural variation in many areas of human cognition, which would otherwise be very difficult to find. Second, D'Andrade draws on his own experience as a key player in this field since the late 1950s, showing the intellectual genealogies within the field, and showing the succession of unifying concepts leading up to modern connectionist theory.

Rating:
Summary: How Culture Impacts Psychological Processes
Review: Overall, an informative glimspse of the fairly short history, and important aspects of cognitive anthropology. This work starts out detailing the initial concepts which helped form, what is today, a growing branch of anthropology. Dr. D'Andrade's format for DCA makes its contents and important concepts extremely organized and accessible, respectively. Although many may initially consider this topic dry, when Dr. D'Andrade delves into schema theories, cultural models and psychological and cognitive processes the reader's interest is sure to heighten. This is in part due to the manner in which the information can immediately be applied to an analysis of one's self. Though this is certainly not a text whose value may be truly appreciated with a quick one-time-over, there is a wealth of fascinating, well-structured and exampled information available for those willing to invest some thought.