As a cognitive psychologist who leads a higher educational institution, I contemplate the effect of artificial intelligence (AI) on equity and justice every day. This technological era highlights the importance of bridging our knowledge of human cognition and behaviors with the design and execution of codes through machine learning. By understanding cognitive processes such as attention, perception, memory, and human intelligence, we can enhance AI systems, ensure that they are truly designed for humans by humans, and embrace the opportunity to make positive societal change (Watch my TEDx keynote on the topic).

A New Renaissance

The rapid advancement of AI technology has propelled us into a new renaissance, akin to the intellectual awakening during the historical Renaissance period. Just as art and science converged during that era, today’s AI revolution integrates diverse fields, including cognitive psychology, neuroscience, computer science, engineering, arts, and the humanities. Let’s briefly explore the historical context and the profound implications of this convergence.

The Historical Context

The modern electronic computer was created in the 1940s to aid in WWII efforts. Many women served as “Human Computers” and assisted in ballistic calculations during the war. The electronic computer-aided this work and made calculations much more efficient. Fast forward to today, AI is still designed by humans and is supposed to be a partner in our quest for a more efficient way of life.

Human Cognition as a Catalyst for Advancement

As we create increasingly powerful AI, we need to ensure that these systems work for us, respecting our ethical boundaries and societal norms. The key to achieving this success lies in understanding each of us and how we process information. We, as in people from diverse cultural, gender, and ethnic backgrounds. Cognitive Psychology is the study of cognition that involves unraveling the intricacies of human mental processes.

• Attention: Humans pay attention selectively. Designing AI systems that mimic this attentional focus can lead to better user experiences.
• Perception: People from diverse backgrounds interpret the same information differently. Understanding perception processes can lead to more equitable AI experiences.
• Memory: Human memory seamlessly accesses information from decades ago. Implications for designing future machines and memory aids for neurodegenerative diseases are immense.
• Human Intelligence: What does it mean to be smart? Can machines achieve human-like intelligence? Understanding the multifaceted nature of human intelligence informs efficient AI design.
• Language: This is the ultimate human communication tool. Creating machines with cross-cultural and linguistic abilities will allow us to serve many more underserved populations around the world.
• Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making: Consider how situational factors, such as something as simple as the weather, affect the way we think, problem-solve, and make decisions will ensure human-centered outcomes.

Ethical Considerations

Many current discussions surround the topics of responsible or ethical use and development of AI. AI, if not designed with human-centered principles of respect in mind, could exacerbate biases. However, these biases are, in many ways, simply a reflection of our own very unique human existence and societal structures. Individually, we are biased beings, and by understanding some of these cognitive concepts of mental shortcuts, called heuristics, and biases such as confirmation bias and stereotypes, we can also design AI systems that are much more efficient and responsible. Our societal structures call for reform as to who makes decisions at the leadership level in almost all industries, AI design included. As long as we have inequities in the workforce and leadership, biases in AI will continue to prosper.

Human Cognition Around the Globe

From my over 15 years of cross-cultural cognitive aging research, I have also learned that cultural factors can significantly affect how people remember simple information. In a series of studies conducted around the world, my research team and I have found that young and older adults do not always remember the same information from culture to culture, mainly because they find different things meaningful. This, in turn, translates into different levels of emotional experience and, eventually, different emotional memories for everyone. For example, in one of my emotional memory studies that utilized positive, negative, and neutral pictures as stimuli, we found that although participants in the US found a picture of champagne glasses as positive, participants in Afghanistan did not because alcohol is prohibited in the country (Sharifi & Chung, 2014). In fact, we can take this further down to the individual level – we all make meaning out of things that we experience, and therefore, our memories may be different from one another. So, the very simple message here is that there may not be a single system that would work well for everyone. Understanding human cognition would allow AI designers to better adapt future inventions to serve people around the world.

AI for a Just Future

Understanding cognitive processes would allow us to design AI innovations that are much more human-centered. The interaction between AI and cognitive science has the potential to transform education, healthcare, and law enforcement practices. For example, recently published in the Psychonomic Society journal, Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, Kleider-Offutt, Beth Stevens, Laura Mickes, and Stewart Boogert examined eyewitness accuracy between humans and an open-source facial recognition system (FRS; FaceNet) in perpetrator identification from lineup photos after exposure to real crime videos of varying quality. The FRS performance was superior to human performance, regardless of video clarity or perpetrator race. These results suggest that AI may supplement eyewitness memory and could transform law enforcement practices.

By embracing interdisciplinary collaboration, prioritizing ethics, and respecting human values, we can propel technology to unprecedented heights. As we stand on the brink of this new renaissance, let us ensure that our machines serve humanity with wisdom, empathy, and foresight, and utilize this pivotal moment to advance equity and justice in our society.

Referenced articles

Kleider-Offut, H., Stevens, B., Mickes, L., & Boogert, S. (2024). Application of artificial intelligence to eyewitness identification. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 9:19. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235‐024‐00542‐0  

Sharifi, F. & Chung, C. (2014). Emotional memory and aging: Afghanistan vs. US. Journal of Integrated Social Sciences, 4(1), 1-17.