ANTH 358 Seattle Campus Culture and Cognition Surveys anthropological theories and research on the relationship between language, thought, and behavior. Examines the influence of cultural inheritance on perception, classification, inference, and choice. Describes relevant cross-cultural research methods and evaluates theoretical models used by cognitive anthropologists. This course will introduce students to the contributions of cultural anthropology to our understanding of how humans of varied cultures understand the world we live in.
Cognitive anthropology is the study of culture and mind.
Culture is concerned with the knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions held by members of a society, while cognition is concerned with how individuals construct an image of themselves and of their world in thought. Accounts of exotic customs described from distant corners of the globe, first by travelers, missionaries, and colonial officials, later by professional anthropologists, have fueled speculation in Western intellectual circles concerning the evolution of human intelligence. These accounts have also been cited as evidence for the psychic unity of mankind. This course will examine recent research findings concerning cultural influences on perception, classification, memory, semantics, logical inference, decision-making, and metaphor, issues of concern not only to cultural anthropology, but also for psychology, linguistics, and philosophy. A graduate seminar, ANTH 542 is offer at the same time for graduate students interested in the topic.