Hypocognition, in

cognitive linguistics Cognitive linguistics is an interdisciplinary branch of linguistics, combining knowledge and research from cognitive science, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology and linguistics. Models and theoretical accounts of cognitive linguistics are con ...

, means missing and being unable to communicate cognitive and linguistic representations because there are no words for particular concepts.

Origins

The word hypocognition (and its opposite, hypercognition) was coined by American

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...

and

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms an ...

Robert Levy in his 1973 book ''Tahitians: Mind and Experience in the Society Islands''. After 26 months of studying them, Levy described

Tahitians The Tahitians ( ty, Māohi; french: Tahitiens) are the Polynesian ethnic group indigenous to Tahiti and thirteen other Society Islands in French Polynesia. The numbers may also include the modern population in these islands of mixed Polynesia ...

as having no words to describe sorrow or guilt, resulting in people who had suffered personal losses describing themselves as feeling sick or strange instead of sad. Levy believed the Tahitians' lack of frames for thinking about and expressing grief contributed to their high suicide rate. He believed that a balance between hypercognition and hypocognition was culturally most desirable.

Usage

Hypocognition is a phrase commonly used in linguistics. In 2004

George Lakoff George Philip Lakoff (; born May 24, 1941) is an American cognitive linguist and philosopher, best known for his thesis that people's lives are significantly influenced by the conceptual metaphors they use to explain complex phenomena. The con ...

used it to describe political

progressives Progressivism holds that it is possible to improve human societies through political action. As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, techn ...

in the United States, saying that relative to conservatives they suffer from "massive hypocognition," which he described as the lack of having a progressive philosophy framed around the progressive core values of empathy and responsibility such as "effective government" versus "less government" or "broader prosperity" versus "free markets."

Effects

Hypocognition has been blamed for preventing the practical application of

evidence-based medicine Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is "the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients". The aim of EBM is to integrate the experience of the clinician, the values of t ...

in areas where frames (contextual and presentational influences on perceptions of reality) obscure facts. More generally, experts often overuse their own expertise: e.g. cardiologist diagnose a heart problem when the actual problem is something else.

References

{{Reflist Cognitive biases Cognitive linguistics Psycholinguistics Semantics Vocabulary