Abstract

A cartoon description of the goals of cognitive science and neuroscience might read respectively “How the mind works” and “How the brain works.” In this caricature, there would seem to be little overlap in the vocabularies employed by each domain. The cartoon cognitive scientist could speak at length about decision making and short‐term memory in a relatively self‐consistent manner, without any need to make reference to the language of neuroscience. Likewise, the cartoon neuroscientist could provide an immense body of physical detail about the function of neurons, synapses, and their component parts. She could even build models about how collections of neurons work together, or even how they might have developed.