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The new welcome text is a (groan) welcome addition, but I was thinking maybe a quick blurb in the FAQ could help make it abundantly clear that "cognitive sciences" is not just an alternate spelling of "cognitive science" which has a defined meaning much more narrow than the scope of our site.

What are Cognitive Sciences?
We consider all fields of science that relate to the brain or mind at any level of abstraction "Cognitive Sciences", hence the S. This includes fields of study from neuroscience and neurobiology to psychology and psychiatry. Just like a college psychology department there are many interactions between the related fields, so questions about the mind, brain, behavior and cognition are all welcome here.

Thoughts, corrections, critiques?

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    -1 for the welcome text is a (groan) welcome addition :-)
    – Josh
    Sep 1, 2012 at 16:20
  • I think "hence the S" might come across as a bit abrupt, but I don't have an alternative. I had thought of "Cognitive Sciences, plural" but I don't know if that's any better.
    – Chuck Sherrington
    Sep 3, 2012 at 1:06

1 Answer 1

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I like the idea of incorporating something about the current name into the FAQ.

I particularly liked your sentence that explains our name:

We consider all fields of science that relate to the brain or mind at any level of abstraction "Cognitive Sciences", hence the S.

I'm mindful of how the above addition might fit into the existing FAQ.

I guess (1) it could just be added to the end. Alternatively, you could have something like the following

[bolded just to highlight possible new bits]

Cognitive Sciences - Stack Exchange is for researchers, academics, students, and anyone else needing expert answers to advanced questions in the cognitive sciences. We consider all fields of science that relate to the brain or mind at any level of abstraction "Cognitive Sciences", hence the S.

Thus, if you have questions about ...

  • Cognitive science
  • Psychology (e.g., cognitive, social, developmental, biological, applied, clinical, organizational, etc.)
  • Psychiatry
  • Neuroscience and neurobiology
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  • I wonder whether Psychiatry fits into Cognitive Science(s) that well ... Of course there is psychiatric research but isn't that more a medical topic? On the other hand it is taught in CogSci courses to a certain extent - any thoughts?
    – schultem
    Sep 12, 2012 at 4:26
  • I think "psychiatry" has largely been included as an explicit discipline because of historic reasons. The original Area 51 proposal was a merger of "cognitive science", "psychology", and "psychiatry". Also, the point you make relates more to the problem of calling the site "cognitive sciences" when it is meant to encompass the broad range of mind and behaviour based disciplines which would include psychiatry.
    – Jeromy Anglim
    Sep 12, 2012 at 4:43
  • ok - see you point :-)
    – schultem
    Sep 12, 2012 at 8:07

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