Black@YALE.ARPA@sri-unix.UUCP (09/21/83)
From: "John B. Black" <Black@YALE.ARPA>
Around a year ago I posted a message to this list requesting pointers
to Science Fiction stories that utilized modern cognitive psychology. I
received a few suggestions, but they were to older, usually invalid
psychological results. For example, let me assure you that grinding up
experts and feeding them as hamburgers to novices will not turn the
novices into experts; in fact, it doesn't even work for planaria, as a
few people thought for a short time. I even received one argument that
cognitive-psychology-based science fiction was not possible by definition
because psychology is not a science.
Well, I am happy to report that I have finally found one such usage
of cognitive psychology in James Hogan's new book CODE OF THE LIFEMAKER.
In particular, near the beginning of the book, Hogan applies the concept
of category prototypes to explain how one of the characters can fool people
into thinking he can read their minds. Discovering this example applcation
encourages me to repeat my query. Anyone seen any other examples of
using cognitive psychology principles and results in Science Fiction?
By the way, I am about halfway through the CODE OF THE LIFEMAKER and
I am finding it very entertaining (but then I have liked all of Hogan's
books).
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