Cognitive anthropology is quite different from other fields of cultural anthropology in that it favors a rather formalistic approach (formalization, formulation, model, structure, system and the like). For example, in terms of the methodology of research and analysis, cognitive anthropology has eagerly deployed and developed such a formalistic methodology as questionnaires, controlled experimental settings, structured interviewing, articulate and well-defined procedures, statistical analysis and the like. Such a formalistic approach is quite a contrast to the methodology cultural anthropology in general follows, which is usually based on heuristics and searches for "Thick Description."
Therefore, even in the United States, the number of those anthropologists who are specialized in cognitive anthropology is limited and the field has evolved as a rather uniquely specialized area of anthropological research. In Japan, little attention has been paid to the development of cognitive anthropology, especially to the development of a "Cultural Models Approach," the main focus of theoretical and methodological discussion of this paper, which has been developed during 1980s and 1990s, inspired by the theoretical developments in cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology.
The first objective of this paper is to make a rather comprehensive discussion of the development of cognitive anthropology in the united States, formulating the development as that from ethnoscience based on the "feature model" of cultural knowledge structure to cultural models approach based on a "schema-oriented" approach. In the course of discussion, I designate the drawbacks inherent to ethnoscience and feature models and go on to explore a "cultural models approach" to overcome the shortcomings of the former. I refer to cognitive psychology, prototype theory of categorization, cognitive semantics, situation model approach and so on as far as they contribute to the understanding of a cultural models approach.
So far, the cultural models approach has been strongly associated with cognitive semantics; it has little to do with the situation model approach. However, I pursue a further possibility of both theoretical and methodological development combining a cultural models approach with a situation model approach. I will demonstrate such a possibility, referring to the study of clinical knowledge in a pediatrics setting, which is the second objective of this paper.
