Several individuals have attempted more rigorous definitions of cognitive science. A computational view emphasizes that, "cognitive science, sometimes explicitly, and sometimes implicitly, tries to elucidate the workings of the mind by treating them as computations, not necessarily of the sort that is carried out be the digital computer, but of a sort that lies within broader theory of computation" (Johnson-Laird, 1988). Restrictive definitions of cognitive science however, include only one or other divergent models that cognitive scientists have developed.

Early cognitive scientists viewed the mind as a processor, similar to the early digital computer. The mind was seen as a passive recipient of information,

Mental processes deal with perceptions, ideas, images, hypothesis, thoughts and memories. For cognitive science all these entities are mental representations or symbols of one sort or another (Johnson-Laird, 1988). One approach to cognitive science made the assumption that the ideas or concepts can be understood with a general theory of symbols. We have symbols inside our heads, symbols that represent various things, perhaps a symbol for dogs, and each of us maybe has a symbol of ourselves.

Cognitive science models can be contrasted and compared with the familiar models of behaviorism. Behaviorism, for example, self-consciously makes the mind into a "black box", asserting that only observable stimuli and responses can be studied. While the behaviorist model is limited to inputs such as stimuli and outputs such as responses, the cognitivist model is concerned with inputs, processing and outputs. The classical psychoanalytical model of the mind was energy based one. Freud described how the forces of the unconscious are expressed, transformed, or repressed, resulting in everyday behaviors. Another important area within cognitive science that has clinical relevance is the study of unconscious processing. Research on the unconscious is not new, and includes the pioneering work of Helmoltz, Janet, and Freud. However, it is not until the emergence of cognitive science that the cognitive unconscious became an area of study. Research has focused on such areas as selective attention, subliminal perception, implicit memory, hypnotic suggestion, and dreaming.

Jerry Fodor argues against the widely held view that mental processes are largely computations, that the architecture of cognition is modular, and that the explanation of our innate mental structure is basically Darwinian. Although Fodor has praised the computational theory of mind as the best theory of cognition that we have got, he considers it to be only a fragment of the truth. In fact he claims, cognitive scientists do not really know much yet about how the mind works. Fodor's aim is to explore the relationship among computational and modular theories of mind, nativism and evolutionary psychology. Fo

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