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What are the works/papers/results/theories any expert in cognitive science should know, even if they're outside his/her specific field of expertise?

One paper/theory per answer please, and state why do you find this work important to know (and ideally, not just because it has lots of citations, or because everyone teach it at Cognitive Science 101)

Artem Kaznatcheev
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Ofri Raviv
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  • Perhaps a better idea to agree first on what subjects should be covered.. I remember being told the University History department claimed they belong in Cog. Science... If there's some agreement somewhere else please point me.. – Software Mechanic Jan 25 '12 at 08:09
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    We haven't established guidelines on poll-type questions yet, but either way I feel you should at least limit the scope of the question considerably. Cognitive Science is too broad of a field in my opinion for this topic to be constructive in any way. – Steven Jeuris Jan 25 '12 at 10:04
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    I really believe this should be set as CW (there's no definitive answer, or many replies might be seen as equally valid and knowledgeable), and it would be good if respondents could highlight things like field of study, why they think this is an important paper, are there rejoinders or critical issues, etc., IMO. – chl Jan 25 '12 at 12:42
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    Not constructive? Seriously? The answer to this question alone could be worth its own site! – Ofri Raviv Jan 25 '12 at 16:33
  • @StevenJeuris - About scope, its intensionally wide. Inside my fields of expertise (Perception and perceptual learning) I believe I know the important works. I was wondering what other people think I ought to know about other sub-fields of cognitive science. – Ofri Raviv Jan 25 '12 at 16:35
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    @OfriRaviv: Feel free to participate in the meta discussion I linked to in my comment. – Steven Jeuris Jan 25 '12 at 16:37
  • @OfriRaviv these questions are tricky, narrowing your scope can make it okay. The problem is there could be hundreds of answers to this question. This question is a pretty acceptable example. Note there sin't much disagreement; Design of Everyday Things and Don't Make Me Think come to mind almost instantly for most professionals. Try to find a question you can ask with that sort of focused potential response. – Ben Brocka Jan 25 '12 at 16:45
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    The answer to this question alone could be worth its own site! Which is exactly why it's not a constructive question. If it needs an entire site to be answered properly, it's too broad. – Josh Jan 25 '12 at 16:54
  • ... or an example from this very site: http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/q/16/21 – Steven Jeuris Jan 25 '12 at 17:38
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    I don't exactly understand why this question was closed (although it SHOULD be made community wiki, although that might not be possible anymore). cstheory.SE (one of the few academic SEs that has maintained a very high level of academic participation and questions) has a question just like this. – Artem Kaznatcheev Jan 31 '12 at 12:58
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    I feel this is actually a good question, and possibly very valuable. If it were to be slightly reworded (What are the seminal papers in Cognitive Science?), it would not be excessively open ended. Certain papers and ideas have clearly left a large impact on the field. Naming these papers would transcend an individual opinion, because their importance is widely agreed upon. The importance of the paper could even be crudely measured by the number of citations, moving the answer further from opinion. The only threat are bad answers, such providing obscure or discredited papers. – Preece Feb 16 '12 at 10:11
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    Man, if you guys make too many hard and fast rules (unless you have a REALLY good reason for them like stack exchange makes you), then its going to turn people away from cogsci and the pool of people coming here is just going to shrink. –  Sep 01 '13 at 01:22
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    This is an awesome question in my opinion. @StevenJeuris that link you cite I believe actually should be in open data. This would be a fun question as each person would be limited to one answer. I already cast my vote to reopen it, I upvoted it too. I'm not sure what the goals of the site are sometimes...do we get shut down if we don't follow super specific rules? –  Sep 01 '13 at 01:26
  • @WhyDoYouThinkThatIsTrue the intent behind the original question was to find papers and works that I as a researcher in a specific subfield (perceptual learning, actually) should know outside of my specific topic of research, because they are so important, no one should call themselves a psychologist or a cognitive scientist without knowing them. – Ofri Raviv Sep 01 '13 at 18:03

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