Cognitive Anthropology

By Bobbie Simova, Tara Robertson and Duke Beasley

BASIC PREMISES
Cognitive anthropology addresses the ways in which people conceive of and think about
events and objects in the world. It provides a link between human thought processes and the
physical and ideational aspects of culture (D’Andrade 1995: 1). This subfield of anthropology
is rooted in Boasian cultural relativism, influenced by anthropological linguistics, and closely
aligned with psychological investigations of cognitive processes. It arose as a separate area of
study in the 1950s, as ethnographers sought to discover “the native’s point of view,” adopting
an emic approach to anthropology (Erickson and Murphy 2003: 115). The new field was
initially referred to variously  as Ethnosemantics, Ethnoscience, Ethnolinguistics, and New
Ethnography.
In the first decades of practice, cognitive anthropologists focused on folk taxonomies,
including concepts of color, plants, and diseases. During the 1960s and 1970s a theoretical
adjustment and methodological shift occurred within cognitive anthropology. Linguistic
analyses continued to provide methods for understanding and accessing the cognitive
categories of indigenous people. However, the focus was no longer restricted to items and
relationships within indigenous categories but stressed analyzing categories in terms of
mental processes. Scholars of this generation assumed that there were mental processes based
on the structure of the mind and, hence, common to all humans. This approach extended its
scope to study not only components of abstract systems of thought but also to examine how
mental processes relate to symbols and ideas (McGee & Warms 1996).
The methodology, theoretical underpinnings, and subjects of cognitive anthropology have
been diverse. The field can be divided into three phases: (1) an early formative period in the
1950s called ethnoscience; (2) the middle period during the 1960s and 1970s, commonly
identified with the study of folk models; and (3) the most recent period beginning in the
1980s with the growth of schema theory and the development of consensus theory.
Cognitive anthropology is closely aligned with psychology, because both explore the nature
of cognitive processes (D’Andrade 1995:1). It has also adopted theoretical elements and
methodological techniques from structuralism and linguistics. Cognitive anthropology is a
broad field of inquiry; for example, studies have examined how people arrange colors and
plants into categories as well how people conceptualize disease in terms of symptoms, cause,
and appropriate treatment. Cognitive anthropology not only focuses on discovering how
different peoples organize culture but also how they utilize culture. Contemporary cognitive
anthropology attempts to access the organizing principles that underlie and motivate
human behavior. Although the scope of cognitive anthropology is expansive its
methodology continues to depend strongly on a long-standing tradition of ethnographic
fieldwork and structured interviews.
Cognitive anthropologists regard anthropology as a formal science. They maintain that
culture is composed of logical rules that are based on ideas that can be accessed in the mind.
Cognitive anthropology emphasizes the rules of behavior, not behavior itself. It does not
claim that it can predict human behavior but delineates what is socially and culturally
expected or appropriate in given situations, circumstances, and contexts. It is not concerned
with describing events in order to explain or discover processes of change. Furthermore, this
approach declares that every culture embodies its own unique organizational system for
understanding things, events, and behavior. Some scholars contend that it is necessary to
develop several theories of cultures before striving toward the creation of a grand theory of
Culture (Applebaum, 1987:409). In other words, researchers insist that studies should be
aimed at understanding particular cultures in forming theoretical explanations. Once this has
been achieved, then valid and reliable cross-cultural comparisons become possible, enabling
a general theory of all Culture. 
It was not until the 1950s that cognitive anthropology came to be regarded as a distinct
theoretical and methodological approach within anthropology. However, its intellectual roots
can be traced back much further. Tarnas (1991:333) notes that the Enlightenment produced at
least one distinct avenue for explaining the natural world and humans’ place within it: the
foundation of human knowledge, including encounters with the material world, was located
in the mind. Thus philosophy turned its attention to the analysis of the human mind and
cognitive processes.
The interaction of society and the mind has long been an area of intellectual interest. The
Enlightenment thinkers Rousseau, Hobbes, and Locke all contended that this intersection was
of utmost importance for understanding society. Rousseau postulated that humans were
essentially good, but ruined by civilization and society, and he urged a return to a “natural
state.” Hobbes maintained that humans are by nature a brutish and selfish lot; society and
government are necessary to control and curb our basic nature. Locke, on the other hand,
rejected the Cartesian idea of innate ideas and presumed that humans are at birth “blank
slates,” neither good nor bad, with the experience of their culture shaping the type of person
they would become (Garbarino 1983:12-13).
Perhaps the most long-lasting contribution of Enlightenment philosophers to the development
of cognitive anthropology was Locke’s advocacy of empiricism: He conceived of knowledge
of the world as having roots in sensory experience. Locke argued that “combining and
compounding of simple sensory impressions or ‘ideas’ (defined as mental contents) into more
complex concepts, through reflection after sensation, the mind can arrive at sound
conclusions” (Tarnas, 1991:333). Cognition was conceived as beginning with sensation and
resting on experience. In competition with the empiricist tradition was the rationalist
orientation, which contended that the mind alone could achieve knowledge. The
Enlightenment, nevertheless, combated this claim, maintaining that reason depended on
sensory experience to know anything about the world excluding the mind’s own concoctions
(Tarnas, 1991:334). Rationalist claims of knowledge were increasingly illegitimated. The
mind void of sensory experience could only speculate. These premises translated into
different scientific approaches. Science was regarded as a mechanism for discovering the
probable truths of human existence not as a device for attaining absolute knowledge of
general, universal truths. These epistemological concepts still resonate today in contemporary
cognitive anthropology, as well as among other approaches, and in the school’s theoretical
and methodological basis.
Although operating from various theoretical assumptions, early intellectuals concentrated on
the relationship between the mind and society, but emphasized the impact of society on the
human mind. This intellectual trend continued through the eighteenth century and was
evident in the titles of prominent books of this era. In The Historical Progress of the Human
Mind (1750), Turgot suggested that humanity passed through three stages of increasing
complexity: hunting, pastoralism, and farming. Condorcet’s intellectual history of
mankind, The Outline of Progress of the Human Mind (1795), concentrated on European
thought, dividing history into ten stages, culminating with the French Revolution (Garbarino
1983:15). In the early nineteenth century, Auguste Comte developed a philosophy that
became known as positivism. Comte proposed that earlier modes of thought were imperfectly
speculative, and that knowledge should be gained by empirical observation. He reasoned that
intellectual complexity evolved in much the same way as society and biological beings
(Garbarino 1983:20).
The earliest practitioners of anthropology were also interested in the relationship between the
human mind and society. By viewing his data through the prism of evolution, Morgan
continued the Enlightenment tradition of explaining the phenomenon he observed as a result
of increasing rationality (Garbarino 1983:28-29). E.B. Tylor, who shared many of the views
of Morgan, was also interested in aspects of the mind in less developed societies. His
definition of culture as the, “complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals,
and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society,” reflects this
interest (Garbarino 1983:31).
One concept that is central to cultural anthropology, and particularly to cognitive
anthropology, is the psychic unity of mankind. This concept was developed by the German
Adolf Bastian in the closing years of the nineteenth century. After observing similarities in
customs throughout the world, Bastian concluded that all humans must have the same basic
psychic or mental processes, and that this unity produced similar responses to similar stimuli
(Garbarino 1983:32). While most anthropologists tend to take this concept as a given, some
contemporary cognitive anthropologists question this assumption (Shore 1996:15-41).
Cognitive studies in modern anthropology can be traced back to Franz Boas (Colby
1996:210). Boas, who first turned to anthropology during his research on the Eskimo and
their perception of the color of ice and water, realized that different peoples had different
conceptions of the world around them. He was so affected that he began to focus his life’s
work on understanding the relation between the human mind and the environment (Shore
1996:19). This work, which was fueled by his revolt against the racist thinking of the day,
would direct Boas towards trying to understand the psychology of tribal peoples. This aspect
of his work is best expressed in his essay “Psychological Problems in Anthropology” (1910),
and culminates in his volume The Mind of Primitive Man(1911). Boas encouraged
investigations of tribal categories of sense and perception, such as color, topics that would be
critical in the later development of cognitive anthropology (Shore 1996:20-21).
Some of the methodological rigor and theoretical grounding of cognitive anthropology grew
out of linguistic anthropology. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, in particular, was an important
precursor to the field. In the 1930s, linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf
formulated the view that the structures of language and culture create classificatory categories
that shape meaning and world views (Erickson and Murphy 2003: 115-116). Parallel
developments in psychology in the 1950s also owe much to linguistics. Psychologists,
dissatisfied with the behaviorist explanations of B.F. Skinner, looked to the linguistic insights
of Noam Chomsky to legitimate the reality of mental events (Miller 2003: 142). Early
cognitive anthropological approaches to culture exhibit the influence of linguistics both in
theory and in methods.
In recent years, the methodologies of cognitive anthropology have been subsumed in wider
anthropological research, with few departments offering cognitive anthropology as a distinct
field of study. Anthropologists interested in cognition can look to the interdisciplinary field of
cognitive science, which increasingly centers on advancements in neuroscience, cognitive
linguistics, and computer sciences, especially in relation to the development of artificial
intelligence. Medical anthropology has also proved to be a fertile ground for the development
of cognitive methods and practical understandings of the impact of cultural models of disease
and well-being.

POINTS OF REACTION
In many ways, cognitive anthropology was a reaction against the traditional methods of
ethnography practiced prior to the late 1950s, much of it the result of the influence of
fieldwork pioneers and master teachers, Malinowski and Boas. Traditional ethnography
stressed the technology and techniques for providing material needs, village or local group
composition, family and extended group composition and the roles of the members, political
organization, and the nature of magic, religion, witchcraft, and other forms of native beliefs
(D’Andrade 1995:5). As more and more scholars entered the field, it was found that the
ethnographies of places revisited did not always match the ethnographies of a previous
generation. The best known examples of this were the divergent accounts of the Robert
Redfield and Oscar Lewis of the Mexican village of Tepoztlan published in 1930 and 1951
respectively. Ethnographic validity became a central issue in cultural anthropology (Colby
1996:210).
The problem of validity was first tackled through the use of linguistics. The discovery of the
phoneme, the smallest unit of a meaningful sound, gave anthropologists the opportunity to
understand and record cultures in the native language. This was thought to be a way of
getting around the analyst’s imposition of his own cultural bias on a society (Colby
1996:211). This led to an approach known as Ethnoscience. The seminal papers of this
genre, to which much of the development of cognitive anthropology can be credited, are
traceable to Floyd Lounsbury and Ward Goodenough, particularly Goodenough’s
“Componential Analysis” of 1956 (Applebaum, 1987). Goodenough laid out the basic
premises for the “new ethnography,” as ethnoscience was sometimes known. He states that
“culture is a conceptual mode underlying human behavior ” (1957, quoted in Keesing
1972:300), in that, it refers to the “standards for deciding what is . . . for deciding how one
feels about it, and . . . for deciding how to go about doing it,” (Goodenough 1961:522, quoted
in Keesing 1972:300). No longer was a simple description of what was observed by the
ethnographer sufficient; the new aim was to find the underlying structure behind a peoples’
conception of the world around them. See Conklin’s study of color categories in the “Leading
Figures” section for an exemplary of ethnoscientific study.
This early period of cognitive anthropology basically pursued an adequate ethnographic
methodology. Scholars found previous ethnographic accounts to be problematic and biased
and endeavored to study culture from the viewpoint of indigenous people rather than from the
ethnographer’s construction of a culture. The primary theoretical underpinning of the
ethnoscientific approach is that culture exists only in people’s minds (Applebaum, 1987:409).
For example, Goodenough proposed that to successfully navigate their social world
individuals must control a certain level of knowledge, that he calls a “mental template.” The
methodology of ethnoscience attempted to remove the ethnographer’s categories from the
research process. This position lead to the development of new information eliciting
techniques that tried to avoid the imposition of the ethnographer’s own preconceived cultural
assumptions and ideas. Methods were developed that relied on linguistic techniques based in
the indigenous language and if employed successfully could produce taxonomies or models
free of the ethnographer’s bias.
The principal research goal identified by cognitive anthropologists was to determine the
content and organization of culture as knowledge. This was demonstrated by Anthony
Wallace’s notion of the mazeway, “a mental image of the society and its culture” (D’Andrade
1995:17). He applied this concept to explain the Iroquois revitalization movement brought
about by the Seneca prophet, Handsome Lake. While the mazeway concept was useful for
reformulating traditional terms such as religion and magic, the concept lacked specificity in
addressing how to determine the organization of these elements. From the late 1950s to the
1970s, research was strongly oriented towards method, formalization, and quantification. The
attraction for many was that the field was using methods developed in the study of semantics,
and served as an access to the mind (D’Andrade 1995:246). Much of this early work centered
on taxonomies and domains such as kinship, plants, animals, and colors.
While the methodology was productive in reducing the anthropologist’s bias, ethnoscience
was subject to several criticisms, most focused on the limited nature and number of domains.
The significance that color, kin terms, and plant classifications had for understanding the
human condition was questioned. Some critics charged that it appeared that some cognitive
anthropologists valued the eliciting technique more than the actual data produced from the
procedures. Moreover, the data often did not lead to explanations of the respondents’
worldview (Applebaum, 1987:407). Other critics noted that the ethnoscientific approach to
culture implied extreme cultural relativism. Since ethnoscience stressed the individuality of
each culture it made cross-cultural comparisons very difficult. Others noted deficiencies in
addressing intracultural variation. Practitioners claimed they were trying to capture the
indigenous, not the anthropologist’s, view of culture; however, these native views of culture
depended on who the anthropologist chose to interview (for example, whether male or
female, young or old, high status or low). The question then became whose view was the
anthropologist capturing and how representative was it?
During the 1960s and 1970s a theoretical adjustment and methodological shift occurred
within cognitive anthropology. Linguistic analyses continued to provide methods for
understanding and accessing the cognitive categories of indigenous people. However, the
focus was no longer restricted to items and relationships within indigenous categories but
stressed analyzing categories in terms of mental processes. Scholars of this generation
assumed that there were mental processes based on the structure of the mind and, hence,
common to all humans. This approach extended its scope to study not only components of
abstract systems of thought but also to examine how mental processes relate to symbols
and ideas (McGee & Warms, 1996).
By the early 1980s, schema theory had become the primary means of understanding the
psychological aspect of culture. Schemas are entirely abstract entities and unconsciously
enacted by individuals. They are models of the world that organize experience and the
understandings shared by members of a group or society. Schemata, in conjunction with
connectionist networks, provided even more abstract psychological theory about the nature of
mental representations. Schema theory created a new class of mental entities. Prior to schema
theory, the major pieces of culture were thought be either material or symbolic in nature.
Culture, as conceptualized by anthropologists, started to become thought of in terms of parts
instead of wholes. The concept of parts, however, was not used in the traditional functionalist
sense of static entities constituting an integrated whole, but was used in the sense that the
nature of the parts changed. Through the use of schemata, culture could be placed in the
mind, and the parts became cognitively formed units: features, prototypes, schemas,
propositions, and cognitive categories. Culture could be explained by analyzing these units,
or pieces of culture. Contemporary questions include (1) if cultural pieces are in fact shared;
(2) if they are shared, to what extent; (3) how are these units distributed across persons; and
(5) which distribution of units are internalized. These issues have in fact taken cognitive
studies away from the mainstream of anthropology and moved it closer to psychology
(D’Andrade 1995:246-247).
Cognitive anthropology trends now appear to be leaning towards the study of how cultural
schemas are related to action. This brings up issues of emotion, motivation, and how
individuals internalize culture during socialization. And finally, cognitive structure is being
related to the physical structure of artifacts and the behavioral structure of groups
(D’Andrade 1995:248).

LEADING FIGURES
Ward Goodenough (1919-2013) is one of cognitive anthropology’s early leading scholars,
inaugurating the subdiscipline in 1956 with the publication of “Componential Analysis and
the Study of Meaning” in a volume of Language.  He helped to establish a methodology for
studying cultural systems. His fundamental contribution was in the framing of componential
analysis, now more commonly referred to as feature analysis. Basically, componential
analysis, borrowing its methods from linguistic anthropology, involved the construction of a
matrix that contrasted the binary attributes of a domain in terms of pluses (presence) and
minuses (absence). The co-occurrence of traits could then be analyzed as well as attribute
distribution. For specifics refer to “Property, Kin, and Community on Truk” (1951),
“Componential Analysis and the Study of Meaning” (1956) and “Componential Analysis of
Konkama Lapp Kinship Terminologies” (1964). Several years later he analyzed the
terminology of Yankee kinship to critique an apparent flaw with the method: the possibility
of constructing many valid models using the same data. Essentially, he challenged the
reliability of the results produced stating that the finding had “profound implications for
cultural theory, calling into question the anthropological premise that a society’s culture is
‘shared’ by its members,” (1969: 256). He concluded that the relationship of componential
analysis and cognition must remain inconclusive until further debate has been settled. Indeed,
componential analysis presently serves as only an element of an analytic methodology instead
of its primary method.
Floyd Lounsbury (1914-1998) was another influential figure in the rise of the subdiscipline.
His analysis of Pawnee kinship terms, “A Semantic Analysis of the Pawnee Kinship Usage”
was published in 1956.   
Charles Frake (b. 1930) wrote an interesting article in the late sixties in which he
commented extensively on the nature of current ethnographic data collection beyond kinship
studies. Instead of collecting data by attaining “words for things” in which the ethnographer
records discrete linguistic terms of the other’s language as they occur by matching the terms
against his own lexicon, he proposed that an ethnographer should get “things for words”
(1969:28). He also emphasized that the ethnographer “should strive to define objects
according to the conceptual system of the people he is studying” (1969:28), or in other words
elicit a domain. He argued that studies of how people think have historically sought evidence
of “primitive thinking” instead of actually investigating the processes of cognition. He
contends that future studies should match the methodological rigor of kinship and should aim
for developing a native understanding of the world. He promotes a “bottom up” approach
where the ethnographer first attains the domain items (on the segregates) of different
categories (or contrast sets). The goal, according to Frake, is to create a taxonomy so
differences between contrasting sets are demonstrated in addition to how the attributes of
contrasting sets relate to each other.
Harold Conklin (1926-2016) conducted extensive research in Southeast Asia, producing one
of the largest ethnographic collections for the Philippines. His interest in linguistics and
ecology and commitment to ethnoscience led to pioneering investigations of indigenous
systems of tropical forest agriculture. He also made important contributions to the study of
kinship terminology including “Lexicographical Treatment of Folk Taxonomies” (1969) and
“Ethnogenealogical Method” (1969). Conklin’s investigation of color perception in
“Hanunóo Color Categories” (1955) is characteristic of the sort of study produced by the
early ethnoscientific approach. In this article, Conklin demonstrates that Hanunóo color terms
do not segment the color spectrum in the same manner as western color terms, and in fact
incorporate additional sensory information, such as wetness and dryness. A key observation
of the study was that the type of eliciting material used made a difference in the consistency
of the responses. In 1969, Brent Berlin and Paul Kay presented a study of color categories in
which they trace universal tendencies and historical and cultural development, arguing
against the cultural relativism implied in Conklin’s publication.
Roy D’Andrade (1931-2016)  made important contributions to methodology and theory in
cognitive anthropology. One of his earlier studies is particularly noteworthy for its
methodology. In 1974 D’Andrade published an article criticizing the reliability and validity
of a widely practiced method of social sciences. Researchers conducted studies of how people
judge other’s behavior. Judgments of informants, he argued, were influenced not only by
what they witnessed, but also by the cultural models they entertained about the domain in
question. He noted that their judgment was related to the limitations of human memory.
Aside from his methodological contributions, D’Andrade (1995) has synthesized the field of
cognitive anthropology in one of the first books discussing the approach as a whole.
The Development of Cognitive Anthropology (1995) has provided scholars and students with
an excellent account of the development of cognitive anthropology from early experiments
with the classic feature model to the elaboration of consensus theory in the late 20th century.
A. Kimball Romney’s (b. 1925) many contributions to cognitive anthropology include the
development of consensus theory. Unlike most methods that are concerned with the
reliability of data, the consensus method statistically measures the reliability of individual
informants in relation to each other and in reference to the group as a whole. It demonstrates
how accurately a particular person’s knowledge of a domain corresponds with the domain
knowledge established by several individuals. In other words, the competency of individuals
as informants is measured. For specifics about how cultural consensus works, see the
“Methodology” section of this web page. In a recent article in Current Anthropology,
“Cultural Consensus as a Statistical Model” (1999), there is an intriguing exchange between
Aunger who opposes consensus theory and Romney who rebuts Aunger’s criticisms. Romney
maintains that cultural consensus is a statistical model that does not pre-suppose an
ideological alignment, as Aunger asserts, but rather it demonstrates any existing relationships
between variables.
Furthermore, Romney asserts that all shared knowledge is not cultural, but cultural
knowledge has the elements of being shared among relevant participants and is socially
learned (1999: S104). Romney proceeds to outline three central assumptions of consensus
theory: (1) there is a single, shared conglomerate of answers that constitute a coherent
domain; (2) each respondent’s answers are given independently and only afterwards is the
correlation between respondents known; and (3) items are relatively homogeneously known
by all respondents. Cultural consensus, as other statistical methods, helps to eliminate bias in
analyzing data. It can also reveal patterns, like the degree of intracultural variation, which
may go unnoticed by research using other techniques. The validity of the model has been
tested for a variety of domains and has so far proved to be reliable.
Susan Weller is a medical anthropologist and co-developer of the Cultural Consensus
Model, along with Romney and Batchelder. Her current research interests include medical
topics such as diabetes, AIDS, and asthma, as well as social topics such as stress and folk
illnesses (see web site section  for a link to her profile).   
Stephen Levinson is currently one of the directors of the Max Planck Institute for
Psycholinguistics. His interest in linguistic diversity and cognition has made him a leading
figure in the revival of linguistic relativity in the early 1990s. His own research has
challenged ideas on the universality of linguistic and cognitive spatial categories (Levinson
2003). The Max Planck Institute also has a division devoted to comparative studies on
cognition, conducting innovative, large scale studies on the topic.

KEY WORKS
 Berlin, Brent O., and Paul D. Kay. 1969. Basic Color Terms. Berkley, CA; University
of California Press.
 Chomsky, Noam. 1972. Language and Mind, enlarged edition. New York: Harcourt,
Brace, Jovanovich.
 Conklin, Harold C. 1955. Hanunóo Color Categories. Southwestern Journal of
Anthropology 11:339-344.
 Conklin, Harold C. 1962. Lexicographic Treatment of Folk Taxonomies. International
Journal of American Linguistics 28(2): 119-41.
 D’Andrade, Roy. 1995. The Development of Cognitive Anthropology. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
 D’Andrade, R. and M. Egan. 1974. The Colors of Emotion. American Ethnologist
1:49-63.
 D’Andrade, Roy, Naomi R. Quinn, Sara Beth Nerlove, and A. Kimball Romney.
1972. Categories of Disease in American-English and Mexican-Spanish. In
Multidimensional Scaling, volume II. A. Kimball Romney, Roger N. Shepard and
Sara Beth Nerlove, eds. Pp. 11-54. New York: Seminar Press.
 Dressler, William W. 2012. Cultural consonance: Linking culture, the individual, and
health. Preventive Medicine 54: in press.
 Dressler, William W., Mauro C. Balieiro, Rosane P. Ribeiro and Jose Ernesto dos
Santos. 2007. A prospective study of cultural consonance and depressive symptoms in
urban Brazil. Social Science and Medicine 65: 2058-2069.
 Ember, Carol R. 1977. Cross-Cultural Cognitive Studies. Annual Review of
Anthropology 6: 33-56.
 Frake, Charles O. 1962. The Ethnographic Study of Cognitive Systems. Anthropology
and Human Behavior. Washington, DC: Society of Washington.
 Garro, Linda. 1988. Explaining High Blood Pressure: Variation in Knowledge About
Illness. American Ethnologist 15:1: 98-119.
 Goodenough, Ward. 1956. Componential Analysis and the Study of Meaning.
Language 32(1):195-216.
 Holland, Dorothy and Naomi Quinn. 1987. Cultural Models in Language & Thought.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
 Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal
About the Human Mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
  Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press.
 Levinson, Stephen C. 2003. Space in Language and Cognition: Explorations in
Cognitive Diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Lounsbury, Floyd G. 1956. A Semantic Analysis of Pawnee Kinship Usage.
Language 32(1): 158-194.
 Miller, George. 1956. The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits
on our Capacity for Processing Information. Psychological Review 63:3.
 Nerlove, Sarah and A.K. Romney. 1967. Sibling Terminology and Cross-Sex
Behavior. American Anthropologist 74:1249-1253.
 Romney, A. Kimball. 1989. Quantitative Models, Science and Cumulative
Knowledge. Journal of Quantitative Research 1:153-223.
 Romney, A. Kimball and Roy D’Andrade, editors. 1964. Cognitive Aspects of
English Kin Terms. In Transcultural Studies in Cognition. American Anthropologist
Special Publication 66:3:2:146-170.
 Romney, A. Kimball and Carmella C. Moore. 1998. Toward a Theory of Culture as
Shared Cognitive Structures. Ethos 36(3):314-337.
 Romney, A. Kimball, Susan Weller, and William H. Batchelder. 1987. Culture as
Consensus: A Theory of Culture and Informant Accuracy. American Anthropologist
88(2): 313-338.
 Rosch, Eleanor H. 1975. Cognitive Representations of Semantic Categories. Journal
of Experimental Psychology 104:192-233.
 Shore, Bradd. 1996. Culture in Mind: Cognition, Culture and the Problem of
Meaning. New York: Oxford University Press.
 Tyler, Stephen A., editor. 1969. Cognitive Anthropology. New York: Holt, Rinehart,
and Winston.
 Wallace, Anthony F. C. 1956. Revitialization Movements. American Anthropologist
58:264-281.
 Wallace, Anthony F. C. 1964. On Being Complicated Enough. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Science 17:458-461.
 Weller, Susan C. 2007. Cultural Consensus Theory: Applications and Frequently
Asked Questions. Field Methods 19: 339-68.
 Weller, Susan, and Roberta Baer. 2001. Intra- and Inter-cultural Variation in the
Definition of Five Illnesses: AIDS, Diabetes, and Common Cold, Empacho, and Mal
de Ojo. Journal of Cross Cultural Research, 35(2): 201-226.
 Weller, Susan and A. Kimball Romney. 1988. Structured Interviewing. Newbury
Park, CA: Sage Publications.

PRINCIPAL CONCEPTS
Cultural Consensus Theory: Developed by A. Kimball Romney, William Batchelder, and
Susan Weller in the 1980s as a way to approach cultural knowledge. CCT assumes that
cultural knowledge is shared, but too large to be held by a single individual, and thus
unevenly distributed. Using a collection of analytical techniques, CCT estimates culturally
correct answers to a series of questions while also estimating each participant’s degree of
knowledge or sharing of answers (Weller 2007). It has become a major component of social,
cultural, and medical anthropology and is used in other cognitive sciences and cross-
culturally based research.(For more information see Methods section of webpage)
Cultural Consonance Theory: This theory was developed by Alabama’s own William
Dressler and colleagues (Dressler, Baliero et al. 2007). Cultural consonance refers to the
degree to which people’s activities match with their beliefs about how they should be. The
more their lives match their ideas of success, the better their wellbeing. Dressler and other
researchers have found that people with high cultural consonance have lower stress and fewer
blood pressure problems (Bernard 2011: 51). Interestingly, traits of “successful lives” are
shared to a surprising  extent cross-culturally.
Cultural Model: “Cultural model” is not a precisely articulated concept but rather it “serves
as a catchall phrase for many different kinds of cultural knowledge” (Shore 1996:45). Also
known as folk models, cultural models generally refer to the unconscious set of assumptions
and understandings members of a society or group share. They greatly affect people’s
understanding of the world and of human behavior. Cultural models can be thought of as
loose, interpretative frameworks. They are both overtly and unconsciously taught and are
rooted in knowledge learned from others as well as from accumulated personal experience.
Cultural models are not fixed entities but are malleable structures by nature. As experience is
ascribed meaning, it can reinforce models; however, specific experiences can also challenge
and change models if experiences are considered distinct. Models, nevertheless, can be
consciously altered. Most often cultural models are connected to the emotional responses of
particular experiences so that people regard their assumptions about the world and the things
in it as “natural.” If an emotion evokes a response of disgust or frustration, for example, a
person can deliberately take action to change the model.
Strauss and Quinn (1994) give an example of a fictional female who has learned the schema
for “mother” in conjunction with the schema of a “kitchen.” The actor also recognizes the
emotional responses of her mother, who feels “stuck” in the kitchen, which incidentally goes
unnoticed by the actor’s brother. In turn, the actor responds emotionally and acts purposely so
she does not end up in a similar situation within her own marriage. It is interesting that
Strauss and Quinn note that when the actor and the actor’s husband are not acting
consciously, they unconsciously reproduce the same pattern as the actor’s parents.
Domain: A domain is comprised of a set of related ideas or items that form a larger category.
Weller and Romney define domain as “an organized set of words, concepts, or sentences, all
on the same level of contrast that jointly refer to a single conceptual sphere,” (1988: 9). The
individual items within a domain partially achieve their meaning from their relationship to
other items in a “mutually interdependent system reflecting the way in which a given
language or culture classified the relevant conceptual sphere,” (1988:9). The respondents
should define domain items in their own language. The purpose of having respondents define
the domain is to avoid the imposition of the anthropologist’s own categories onto the culture
or language being studied.
Ethnographic semantics, ethnoscience, the new ethnography: All of these terms refer to
the new directions that the practice of ethnographic collection and interpretation began to
take in the 1950s. This approach regards culture as knowledge (D’Andrade 1995:244), as
opposed to the materialist notions that had dominated the field. These new movements also
produced rigorous formal approaches to informant interviewing, exemplified best in Werner
and Schoepfle’s methodological compendium, Systematic Fieldwork (1987).
Folk Models: These include games, music, and god sets, used to instruct individuals to
negotiate potentially stressful situations (Colby 1996: 212). Thus, a child may learn how to
judge speed and distance from hide and seek, which can then be translated into crossing a
busy street. John Roberts was the first to use folk models as a subject of study in cognitive
anthropology. Some folk and decision models, such as god sets with well-recited attributes,
form larger cognitive systems, such as divinatory readings. The diviner, by collecting several
readings and training under another diviner learns to read people, and produce divinations
that are socially acceptable (Colby 1996:212).
Folk Taxonomies: Much of the early work in ethnoscience concentrated on folk taxonomies,
or the way in which people organize certain classes of objects or notions. There is an
enormous amount of work in this area. For a sampling of what is out there, interested readers
can refer to Harold Conklin’s (1972) Folk  Classification: A Topically Arranged Bibliography
of Contemporary and Background References Through 1971, Department of Anthropology,
Yale University.
Knowledge structures: Knowledge structures go beyond the analysis of taxonomies to try to
elucidate the knowledge and beliefs associated with the various taxonomies and terminology
systems. This includes the study of consensus among individuals in a group, and an analysis
of how their knowledge is organized and used as mental scripts and schemata (Colby
1996:210).
Mazeway: A.F.C. Wallace defines mazeway as “the mental image of society and culture,”
(D’Andrade, 1995:17). The maze is comprised of perceptions of material objects and how
people can manipulate the maze to reduce stress. Wallace proposed this concept as part of his
study of revitalization movements. Wallace postulated that revitalization movements were
sparked by a charismatic leader who embodied a special vision about how life ought to be.
The realization of this vision required a change in the social mazeway.
Mental Scripts: Scripts can be thought of as a set of certain actions one performs in a given
situation. Examples would include behavior in a doctor’s office, or in a restaurant. There are
certain codified and predictable exchanges with minor individual variations (Shore 1996:43).
Existing scripts do not determine the details of an interaction, but rather set schemes or
recipes for action in a given social situation.
Prototypes: Prototype theory is a theory of categorization. The “best example” of a category
is a prototype (Lakoff, 1987). Prototypes are used as a reference point in making judgments
of the similarities and differences in other experiences and things in the world. Lakoff
(1982:16), for example, states that in comparison to other types of birds the features of robins
are judged to be more representative of the category “bird” just as desk chairs are considered
more exemplary of the category chair than are rocking chairs or electric chairs. Membership
largely hinges on a cluster of features a form embodies. Every member may not possess all of
the attributes, but is nonetheless still regarded as a type. When a type is contrasted with the
prototype certain clusters of features are typically more crucial for category measurement
(Lakoff 1984:16). Furthermore, two members of a category can have no resemblance with
each other, but share resemblance with the prototype and therefore be judged as members of
the same category. However, the qualities of a prototype do not dictate category membership
exclusively. The degree to which similarity is exhibited by an object or experience does not
automatically project that object or experience into category membership. For example, pigs
are not categorized as dogs just because they share some features with the prototype of dog
(Lakoff 1982: 17).
Schemata: This has been one of the most important and powerful concepts for cognitive
anthropology in the past twenty years. Bartlett first developed the notion of a schema in the
1930s. He proposed that remembering is guided by a mental structure, a schema, “an active
organization of past reactions, or of past experiences, which must always be supposed to be
operational in any well-adapted organic response (Schacter 1989:692). Cognitive
anthropologists and scientists have modified this notion somewhat since then. A schema is an
“organizing experience,” implying activation of the whole. An example is the English term
writing. When one thinks of writing, several aspects come into play that can denote the action
of guiding a trace leaving implement across a surface, such as writer, implement, surface, and
so on. While an individual schemas may differ, cognitive anthropologists search for the
common notions that can provide keys to the mental structures behind cultural notions. These
notions are not necessarily culturally universal. In Japanese, the term kaku is usually
translated into English as writing. However, whereas in English, nearly everyone would
consider writing to imply that language is being traced onto a surface, the term kaku in
Japanese can mean language, doodles, pictures, or anything else that is traced onto a surface.
Therefore, schemas are culturally specific, and the need for an emic view is still a primary
force in any ethnographic research (D’Andrade 1995:123).
Semantic studies: Concerned primarily with terminology classifications, especially kinship
classification (e.g. Lounsbury 1956), and plant taxonomies. In recent years, a greater
emphasis has been directed towards the development of semantic theory (Colby 1996:210).
Semantic theory: A recent development, semantic theory is built upon an extensionistic
approach that was first developed with kin terminologies and then extended to other domains
(Colby 1996: 211). There are core meanings and extensional meanings, the core meanings
varying less among informants than the extensional meanings. For example, the term cups
can have a core meaning, or referent, that most Americans would agree to, such as a “semi-
cylindrical container, made of porcelain, having a handle, and being approximately 4 to 5
inches tall.” However, some would disagree about whether a large plastic container with no
handle whose purpose is to hold beverages is a cup, or a glass, or neither (Kronenfeld 1996:6-
7).

METHODOLOGIES
Hallmarks of cognitive anthropology are the rigorous elicitation procedures and controlled
questioning of native speakers, which produced greater precision, and the careful analysis
of the distinctive mental features of human cognition and social activity (Atran in Boyer
1993: 48). Several early methodologies used by cognitive anthropologists were embedded in
the theory of the feature model. Feature models refer to a broad analytic concept that
developed in the 1950s and 1960s primarily within kinship studies. Its general
methodological approach is that sets of terms can be contrasted to discover at the
fundamental attributes of each set, its features. Feature analysis can be applied both to
taxonomies and to paradigms. Taxonomies begin with a general concept, which is divided
into more precise categories and terms, which are in turn segmented again. This process is
repeated until no further subdivisions are possible. Complete paradigms, on the other hand,
occur when general terms can be combined with other general terms within the paradigm so
that all potential features transpire; however, most paradigms are incomplete. Paradigms can
be thought of in terms of a matrix structure. So, for example, D’Andrade (1995) depicts an
almost complete paradigmatic structure of English terms for humans. The possible
combinations of types of humans consist of woman, man, girl, boy and baby. The features
that are contrasted are age (adult, immature and newborn) and gender (female and male). The
paradigm would be complete if there were particular terms to refer to female and male
newborns rather than the generic term baby. The fundamental difference between a paradigm
and taxonomy is the way distinctions are structured; the primary commonality is that terms
within each are structured in relation to other terms to form patterns based on the
discrimination of features.
Folk taxonomies as briefly alluded to above, are also aimed at understanding how people
cognitively organize information. Folk taxonomies are classes of phenomena arranged by
inclusion criteria that show the relationship between kinds of things. Simply put, is X a kind
of Y. They are based on levels. The first level, called the unique beginner, is the all-inclusive
general category. Succeeding distinctions are then made by the judgment of similarity and
dissimilarity of items to form additional levels. With each separation the levels become more
explicit and the differences between groups of items more miniscule. Take for example, as
D’Andrade notes (1995:99), the category of creature in the English language. Creature, the
unique beginner is rank zero, is subdivided into insect, fish, bird and animal forming rank
one, or the life form level. Each class of items can be further subdivided into another level,
termed the intermediate level. One of the “animal” divisions is cat. Items in the “cat”
category can then be distributed into the following level, known as the generic level or rank
two, to include cat, tiger, and lion. The cat occurring in rank two can be divided into the
specific level, or rank three. Specific level terms include Persian cat, Siamese cat, ordinary
cat, and Manx cat.
Feature models are not only concerned with how people organize information, but also what
the organization means in terms of mental information processing. Bruner, Goodnow, and
Austin (1956 described in D’Andrade 1995:93) maintain that there are two primary
mechanisms for reducing the strain on short-term memory: attribute reduction and
configurational recoding. Attribute reduction describes the tendency to contract the number
of criterial features of an object down to a very small number, five or six, and ignore other
attributes. Configurational recoding is based on the chunking together of several features to
form a single characteristic. Chunking is a mental process where the short-term memory
segments information by grouping items together. Local phone numbers, such as 378-9976,
are chunked into two parts 378 and 9976. The second segment can again be chunked into 99
and 76.
The psychobiological constraints placed on the human mind’s capacity for organizing
materials and phenomena are of central importance in cognitive anthropology. There are a
myriad of things in the world that the mind comes into contact with in daily life. To be able to
function, the mind manufactures discriminations of attributes so it can process information
without responding to information as if it were new each time it occurs. Simultaneous
discriminations are processed in the short-term memory. In a cross-cultural study of kinship
terminologies Wallace (1964 in D’Andrade 1995) noted that despite the social and
technological complexity of societies that the size of kinship terminologies generally remain
constant. He found terminologies basically consisted of a maximum of six binary distinctions
between classes producing a possibility of sixty-four combinations of terms. He concluded
there must be a psychobiological foundation for this limitation or greater variety would be
observed across societies. This finding became known as the 26 rule. Wallace was,
nonetheless, not the first to propose this kind of finding. In 1956 Miller, in a now famous
paper “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two” (known as the 27 rule), reported
that people could make seven concurrent distinctions in processing information in short-term
memory before a notable drop-off transpired.
The implications these finding have for cognitive anthropology cannot be underestimated.
Essentially, they help to create a cognitive model of the mind that combines both cultural and
biological aspects of human life (D’Andrade, 1995). Cultural information and criteria for
organizing information is culturally-based, but the principle of six or seven distinctions of
information for short-term memory processing is biologically grounded.
In contemporary cognitive anthropology methods themselves no longer continue to be “the”
overriding focus but instead are used to produce ethnographic data in aid of advancing
theoretical knowledge of how the mind operates. The editors of a book devoted to cognitive
methodology note that “this volume compels field researchers to take very seriously not only
what they hear, but what they ask,” (Weller and Romney 1988:5). This transformation has
substantially altered the variety of work produced by cognitive anthropologists. While
modern methodologies have become more elaborate and sophisticated they remain anchored
in the premises of the early feature model.
Moreover, methods also remain centered on the concept of domain, yet they go beyond
simply eliciting lists of things belonging to a particular category. Current methodologies have
attempted to overcome the earlier problem of pursuing allegedly “meaningless” subjects such
as taxonomies of plants, although these subjects were critical in isolating cognitive
mechanisms of information processing at the onset of this scientific project. Modern
methodologies tackle more complex topics. For example, Garro (1988) examined the
explanatory model of two domains, causes and symptoms, of high blood pressure among
Ojibway Indians living in Manitoba, Canada to assess how they were related to each other.
Cognitive anthropologists stress systematic data collection and analysis in addressing
issues of reliability and validity and, consequently, rely heavily on structured interviewing
and statistical analyses. Their techniques can be divided into three groups that produce
different sorts of data: similarity techniques, ordering techniques, and test performance
techniques (Weller and Romney, 1988). Similarity methods call for respondents to judge the
likeness of particular items. Ordered methods require the ranking of items along a conceptual
scale. Test performance methods regard respondents as “correct” or “incorrect” depending on
how they execute a specified task. Specific methods used by cognitive anthropologists
include free listing, frame elicitation, triad tests, pile sorts, paired comparisons, rank order,
true and false tests, and cultural consensus tasks.
A key feature of cognitive studies is that respondents are asked to define categories and terms
in their own language. It is assumed that the anthropologist and the respondents do not have
identical understandings of domains. Therefore, the elicitation of a specific domain is
typically the first step in these studies. The boundaries of culturally relevant items within a
domain can be determined through a variety of techniques. Domains can be delineated by
the free listing method where respondents are asked to list all the kinds of X they know, or
why they chose X over Y. Sometimes group interviews are used to define domains. Free
lists can be analyzed in three ways: by the ordering of terms, by the frequency of terms, and
by the use of modifiers. The saliency of mentioned items is determined either by the ordering
of terms, where the most salient items occur at the top of the list, or by the frequency elicited.
Weller and Romney (1988:11) note that most free lists produced by individuals are not
complete but as the sample increases the list stabilizes. Items in a free list must be recorded
verbatim to probe for the definition of the item cited. The decision about where the cut-off
point should be located is subjective, but depends on the purpose of the study, the number of
elicited terms, and the type of data collection employed (Weller and Romney, 1988).
Once a domain has been delimited a number of possibilities face the researcher. One option
is the pile sort method, which can be either a single sort or a successive sort. In a single sort
terms (or sometimes pictures or colors depending on the subject) from the free list are placed
on individual index cards. They are shuffled at the beginning of each interview to ensure
randomness. Respondents are asked to group the cards in terms of similarity so that most like
terms are in the same pile and unlike terms are not. After the piles have been arranged the
respondent is asked why terms were grouped as they were. An item-by-item matrix is then
created. If terms were placed in the same pile they receive a code of one, if terms were not
placed in the same pile they receive a code of zero. Matrices are tabulated for both
individuals and the group. Conducting a successive pile sort is slightly different. Terms from
the free list are sorted into piles, as in the single sort method, but respondents are restricted
into separating the terms into two groups. Respondents are then asked to subdivide the initial
piles. The continual process of subdividing a pile is repeated until it can no longer occur. This
method enables the creation of a taxonomic tree for individuals, a group, or both. The
structures produced by individuals can be compared.
Another method frequently used by cognitive anthropologists is the triad method. This
method involves either similarity or ordered data. Items are arranged into sets of three. In the
case of ordered data, respondents are asked to order each set from the “most” to “least” of a
feature. Respondents are asked to choose the most different item with similarity data. Unlike
a pile sort, the triad method is not dependent on the literacy of informants. Triad sorts have
been used in studies of kinship terminologies, animal terms, occupations and disease terms
(Weller and Romney, 1988). To conduct a triad test the number of triads must be calculated
with a mathematical formula. All potential combinations of items are then compiled. If items
in a domain are vast, a balanced incomplete block triad design can reduce the total number
of triads (see Weller and Romney for details, 1988). Triad sets and the position of terms
within each triad are then randomized. Interpretative data can be collected from the
respondents after they have completed the triad task to find out the criteria for the choices
they made. Tabulation varies depending on the kind of data used in the triad. If the data were
rank ordered, the ranks are summed across items for each informant; however, if similarity
data were used, responses are arranged in a similarity matrix (Weller and Romney, 1988:36).
A similarity matrix can be created for each individual and for the group. Weller and Romney
(1988) suggest hierarchical clustering or multidimensional scaling for descriptive analysis.
Consensus theory directly addresses issues of reliability in data collection not of the
information collected, but rather of the people interviewed. It aids a researcher to, “describe
and measure the extent to which cultural beliefs are shared . . . If the beliefs represented by
the data are not shared, the analysis will show this,” (Romney, 1999). Data is determined to
be correct or incorrect by the respondents; the researcher codes their answers. True-false,
multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, rank order, interval estimates and matching formats can all
be used in consensus theory. For example, in true-false formats respondents are asked to
determine whether a set of statements is correct, coded as one, or incorrect, coded as zero.
Consensus theory requires response data (either interval or dichotomous), rather
than performance data in which respondents themselves are coded as being correct or
incorrect. Consensus theory measures how much a respondent knows and seeks to aggregate
the answers of several respondents to achieve a synthesized representation of their
knowledge. The goal of consensus theory is to use the pattern of agreement among
respondents to make inferences about their knowledge (Weller and Romney, 1988:74).
Furthermore, a consensus model assumes that the relationship between respondents is a
function of the level of their competency with respect to some domain of knowledge; it
allows a researcher to gauge how much a particular respondent knows in relation to other
respondents. Respondents can then be weighted in terms of their competency relative to each
other.
Using a true-false format, Garro (1988) employed consensus theory in a study of high blood
pressure among Ojibway Indians. Garro combined the complementary methods explanatory
models (EMs) in addition to true-false tests. Different EMs were elicited. EMs collect data
about the descriptions of, the meaning of, the experience and the consequences of illness.
True-false questions were aimed at uncovering the reasoning behind the answers of the EMs.
In describing consensus theory she states, “the purpose of this analysis is to determine the
level of sharing and the degree to which individual informants approach the shared
knowledge,” (1988:100). After conducting the EM interviews she took several items (causes
and symptoms) and constructed a similarity matrix. Factor analysis was then performed to
determine the degree to which the domain was shared among respondents. Also using factor
analysis to achieve competency values, respondents were then rated in terms of their degree
of knowledge of the domain. Respondents’ competency values were weighted with more
weight given to more knowledgeable respondents. A true-false test was given to all
respondents. Individual answers were determined to be correct or incorrect from the pattern
of correspondence as compared with the previously weight values of respondents who
exhibited a high agreement with the group.
Although this review has not exhausted all of the various methods contemporary cognitive
anthropologist use, it does portray them in general. Cognitive anthropology is driven by
methodology. Emphasis is and always has been given to systematic data collection in an
effort to attain reliable and valid results. The ultimate aim, however, is nothing less than
discovering and representing mental processes. But a shift has occurred recently. Many
anthropologists are using cognitive techniques for the purpose of eliciting information to
facilitate ethnographic description. Applied anthropologists are particularly interested in these
techniques. If the past is any indicator of the future, cognitive anthropology will continue to
develop around the systematic and structured collection of data.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
One of the main accomplishments of cognitive anthropology is that it provides detailed and
reliable descriptions of cultural representations. Additionally, it has challenged ideas of
monolithic culture and has helped to bridge culture and the functioning of the mind. The
culture and personality approach helped demonstrate how an individual’s socialization
influenced personality systems that, in turn, influenced cultural practices and beliefs. The
psyche is influenced by the representations it learns by participating in the human cultural
heritage. That heritage is in turn influenced by the limitations and capacities of the human
cognitive system (D’Andrade 1995:251-252). Cognitive anthropology has helped reveal some
of the inner workings of the human mind, and given us a greater understanding of how people
order and perceive the world around them. By far, cognitive anthropology’s most notable
achievement is its development of cultural methodologies that are valid and reliable
representations of human thought.

CRITICISMS
Some of the most severe criticisms of cognitive anthropology have come from its own
practitioners. According to Keesing (1972:307) the so-called “new ethnography” was unable
to move beyond the analysis of artificially simplified and often trivial semantic domains.
Ethnoscientists tended to study such things as color categories and folk taxonomies, without
being able to elucidate their relevance to understanding culture as a whole. Taking a lead
from generative grammar in linguistics, ethnoscientists sought cultural grammars, intending
to move beyond the analyses of semantic categories and domains into wider behavioral
realms. Ethnoscientists attempted to discern how people construe their world from the way
they label and talk about it (Keesing 1972:306). However, this study of elements rather than
relational systems failed to reveal a generative cultural grammar for any culture, and while
generating elaborate taxonomies, failed to discover any internal cultural workings that could
be compared internally or externally.
While the cognitive anthropologists of the last two decades have attempted to address these
problems, they have created problems of their own. One of the most glaring problems is
that almost all investigators do the majority of their research in English. This is to be
expected, given the elaborate nature of the investigative methods now being used, but begs
the question of just how applicable the results can be for other cultures. In addition, there are
multiple factors in operation at any given moment that are difficult to account for using
standard methods of cognitive anthropology. Recently, cognitive anthropologists have
attempted to explore the emotional characteristics of culture that Bateson, Benedict, and
Mead had recognized long ago. The difficulties of managing emotion as a factor in schemata
are now being addressed, but it remains to be seen just how successful the cognitive
anthropologists will be in linking emotion and reason.
Cognitive anthropology deals with abstract theories regarding the nature of the mind. While
there have been a plethora of methods for accessing culture contained in the mind, questions
remain about whether results in fact reflect how individuals organize and perceive society, or
whether they are merely manufactured by investigators, having no foundation in their
subjects’ reality.  Romney and Moore (1998), however, suggest that people do think in terms
of loosely articulated categories (domains). They review some pertinent work in the fields of
neuroscience and psychology and correlate it with findings in cognitive anthropology. In
particular, they note that when people see an object, a representation of the image is
constructed in the brain in a one-to-one manner (Romney and Moore, 1998:322). Images that
visually appear close to one another are mapped as such in mental representations (like
multidimensional scaling). Furthermore, people who have experienced some sort of head
trauma lose memory not randomly, but systematically. Chunks of knowledge are forgotten,
knowledge that concerns certain domains, implying that, “the set of words in a semantic
domain may be localized functional units in the brain,” (Romney and Moore, 1998:325).
Another criticism is that universal agreement on how to find culture in the mind has yet to
emerge. When one compares the works of major figures in the field, such as D’Andrade,
Kronenfeld, and Shore, it is clear they each have a different idea about just how to pursue the
goals of the field. While some may contend that this is a deficiency, it attests to the field’s
vitality and the centrality of the issues under contention. Moreover, when approaching an
issue as complex as the human mind, mental processes, and culture, it is salutary to seek a
multifaceted convergence.