Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cognitive module

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep - for now, consensus seems to be that a rewrite is/has been most appropriate. Non-admin closure. The Evil Spartan 00:28, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cognitive module

Cognitive module (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Essay on cognitive functions or something. According to the talk page, it's a cut and paste from a GFDL source. I don't know the policy on that, but it's a definite AFD candidate so I'm listing it here.-- Luigi30 (Taλk) 12:26, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Could you be more specific in why this article is an AFD candidate. I have tried to modify it so it should not any more be an AFD candidate. If I have not done this rightly, please tell me what is wrong and how I can make it not any more being an AFD candidate.
Jpalme 12:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC)jpalme 13:36 (UTC) 5 September 2007

I think that the critic is making the argument that the text might be violating copyright or that the article is really from a single source. It would pay to include in-line citations from authoritative sources and to put in links to other wikipedia articles by double bracketing a term like evolutionary psychology and rewording the article to facilitate such links. The latter effort might show what has or has not already been covered in WP. Please forgive me if you already knew all or some of this. DCDuring 13:30, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Good idea, I have added a link from the article to Evolutionary psychology. I also found another article in Wikipedia (entitled On Intelligence) which describes somewhat similar ideas as Cognitive modules so I added a link to that article, too.
Jpalme 16:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at the notices on your user page discussion tab. DCDuring 13:32, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Delete. Whether or not this is a copyvio or not, it surely counts as original research, within the strict meaning of the actual policy: it is an original synthesis that seeks to advance a new theory. It also reads like an essay, and lacks a lead section to let us know what it's supposed to be about. - Smerdis of Tlön 13:52, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

The provider and original author of the material actually knows what he is talking about. It is a great first draft. We just need to wikify it. The original deletion issue arose because a bot identified a potential copyright problem which has been resolved. This article is far, far better than many articles not marked for deletion.DCDuring 15:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC) DCDuring 16:03, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The subject might be worthwhile, but it would need a lot of work. The end result won't look much like what we've got. I'd be willing to take a run. DCDuring 16:04, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I look forward to that. It is great cooperating with people in creating a better article.
Jpalme
  • merge this article seems to replicate the subject matter of Modularity of mind, instead of expanding this entirely referenced cut-and-paste job from another site, why not merge any really novel contributions which can be supported into that article? Pete.Hurd 20:15, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge. I support Pete's idea of directing the content to Modularity of mind, instead. • Lawrence Cohen 13:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I have a decision tree: I have put a little time in to trying to encourage the author (Palme) to work on improving it with citations. I don't know how long it would be appropriate to wait.

I intend to find more references, but that may take several months. I have borrowed two evolutionary pscyhology basic books from the library and will check them for support of the article.
Jpalme 17:46, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Without some citations there would be nothing or next-to-nothing to merge and therefore we should DELETE.
Does anyone know of any significant work on any invidual "module" that has benefitted from the theoretical modularity framework?
  • If there were, that might be a reason to have a separate cognitive modules article. Therefore KEEP
  • If there is only theory and an alternative vocabulary for talking about cognitive faculties, then MERGE.

DCDuring 17:02, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, WjBscribe 14:27, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please (even more begging than last time) add new comments below this notice. Thanks, WjBscribe 02:34, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong rewrite I've tagged it {{rewrite}}. A subject with 755 Google scholar hits ought to have an article on wikipedia, and a good one; which sadly can't be said now. At all. I oppose the merge with modularity of mind, while intimately related they're not the same thing. Modularity of mind is the idea (or theory) that parts of it are functionally independtent;cognitive modules are tools (themselves independent part of the mind) that can be used by other parts.--Victor falk 12:45, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
We may need a good article on "cognitive modules", but the article would have to be about the question as to whether and in what sense they exist. There are plenty of folks doing research as if such things might exist in hopes of demonstrating that a particular functional capability is embodied in a cognitive module. The sense in which they exist is very unclear given the apparent plasticity of the physical brain. The research seems to be concerned with relatively basic functions in sensory and motor processing. A relatively high-level function that is ascribed to one or more modules is language. The article that we are dealing with discusses modules that come into being in the course of one's education and socialization. If it is difficult to determine whether the more basic functions are "modules", if will be still more unclear that "prejudice" is a module.
I would love to learn more about the research being done in this area. I just don't think that we are likely to find the expertise for much depth among Wikipedians. It would take a lot of OR and improper synthesis to produce something that was coherent, IMHO. DCDuring 16:25, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
The Language module and Visual modularity articles have some references to good research. The problem is that this article attempts to apply models unproven at the level of basic brain functions (speech, hearing, and visual processing, where brain function modularity is most likely to exist and apply them to behavior and attitudes. There are not likely to be acceptable sources for this. In this article "cognitive modules" seems like a relabelling of "habits". DCDuring 13:41, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
comment what does "Strong rewrite" mean? This article is abysmal. It does not belong in an encyclopedia in it's current form. Keeping this article as it stands effectively suspends WP:V and includes WP:OR. Why not just delete it, and wait until somebody writes an article which meets wikipedias standards of quality to replace it? Refusing to delete this, if no one is going to fix it, simply means we reject the notion that there are minimal standards for inclusion. Pete.Hurd 06:50, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Strong rewrite Gut and stub is was I meant, exactly. And I meant to do this myself (though if anybody wants to help I don't mind :). The current text should be linked to its original site as a reference (at most). I've been doing some research on those modules, as to have a one-line intro and a couple of sources. --Victor falk 13:16, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Gut and Stub seems like a reasonable course of action, althought I note a great deal of activity to add sources. DCDuring 13:41, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Update: Based on the "gut and stub" recommendations above, I've now had a go at removing the uncited material, material only supported by self-published sources, and obvious original research. This left a number of non-sequiturs, so I've trimmed them out as well. I have also deleted those "further reading" references which are not directly used to support the argument in the article, lest they be seen as providing support by numbers and reflected reputation of their authors. Where there was ambiguity about relevance, I've tried to give the original material the benefit of the doubt. There's really not much left.
Update 2: In fact, going back to the original source material, there's so little left that no coherent article remains. I've now trimmed it to a stub. There may still be a good article to be written about this, but it should be rewritten from scratch, with detailed cites to peer-reviewed literature in the relevant areas of study. With the help of User:Victor falk, I've put a list of possible sources on the Talk:Cognitive modules page. -- The Anome 14:57, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Consensus?

Are we reaching a consensus that this stub is to be retained and not deleted ? The original question was whether this article should be merged. Apparent decision was "No, nothing to merge". What would be in this article that would not be covered in modularity of mind? DCDuring 16:30, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

  • aye good stub, rescind my delete !vote. Pete.Hurd 17:07, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • aye nice to see some {{sofixit}} mentality in this crowd! (: --Victor falk 17:17, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • aye looks good to me. — xDanielx T/C 21:49, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
[[Modularity of mind]] seems to be only oriented towards inherited basic capabilities, and not include learned modules in the concept of cognitive modules. To me, this seems very restricted, since that excludes most of human thinking, since most of human thinking is using also learned and not only inherited modules.
There seems to be a disagreement of whether the term cognitive module is to be used only to refer to basic, general cognitive methods used to create more advanced thoughts, or also to refer to the more advanced thoughts created using the basic modules. For example, with the first definition of cognitive modules the ability to rapidly compute trajectories of moving objects is a cognitive module, but the ability to use this capability to play basket ball is not a cognitive module. With the second definition, also learned capabilities like the capability to play basket ball are themselves a set of learned cognitive modules. Different experts seem to use the term cognitive modules in these two different ways.
Jpalme 14:34, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.