Nature and culture of finger counting: diversity and representational effects of an embodied cognitive tool

Studies like the one conducted by Domahs et al. (2010, in Cognition) corroborate that finger counting habits affect how numbers are processed, and legitimize the assumption that this effect is culturally modulated. The degree of cultural diversity in finger counting, however, has been grossly underestimated in the field at large, which, in turn, has restricted research questions and designs. In this paper, we demonstrate that fingers as a tool for counting are not only naturally available, but are also-and crucially so-culturally encoded. To substantiate this, we outline the variability in finger counting and illustrate each of its types with instances from the literature. We argue that the different types of finger counting all constitute distinct representational systems, and we use their properties-dimensionality, dimensional representation, base and sub-base values, extendibility and extent, sign count, and regularity-to devise a typology of such systems. This allows us to explore representational effects, that is, the cognitive implications these properties may have, for instance, for the efficiency of information encoding and representation, ease of learning and mastering the system, or memory retrieval and cognitive load. We then highlight the ambivalent consequences arising from structural inconsistencies between finger counting and other modes of number representation like verbal or notational systems, and we discuss how this informs questions on the evolution and development of counting systems. Based on these analyses, we suggest some directions for future research in the field of embodied cognition that would profit substantially from taking into account the cultural diversity in finger counting.     

Imitation and representational development in young children with Down syndrome

Competence in object search and pretend play are argued to reflect young children's representational abilities and appear delayed in children with Down syndrome relative to social and imitative skills. This paper explores the effects on object search and play of this social strength in children with Down syndrome. Three experiments compared performance on traditional tasks with modified tasks designed to assess the role of imitation in object search and pretend play. Children with Down syndrome, relative to typically‐developing children, were able and willing to imitate hiding actions when no object was hidden (Experiment 1). When imitation was prevented in object search, children with Down syndrome searched less effectively than typically‐developing children (Experiment 2). In play, children with Down syndrome expressed more willingness to imitate a counter‐functional action, modelled by the experimenter, despite apparent competence in spontaneous functional play (Experiment 3). These findings indicate that object search and play behaviours of children with Down syndrome rely more heavily on imitation than is the case for typically‐developing children. The implications for the development of children with Down syndrome and models of representational development are discussed.     

Rigidity in children's drawings and its relation with representational change

Four studies tested the application of to the drawing domain. In particular, we tested her claim that young children are inhibited in their attempts at changing their graphic representations (representational change) due to being constrained by the order in which the elements of the representation are drawn (procedural rigidity). The first study required 60 children (4- to 6-year-olds and an older comparison group of 8-year-olds) to make three drawings of a familiar and novel topic. From these drawings each child was measured for procedural rigidity. In a further drawing the child was asked to modify their usual representation of each topic. Regression analyses revealed procedural rigidity levels were not predictive of manipulation performance. A second study, testing 75 4- to 6-year-olds and a third study, testing 30 3- to 4-year-olds, revealed that when young children were specifically asked to manipulate rigid sub-procedures on a familiar topic they were indeed able to do so. Finally, a fourth study (testing 40 5-year-olds and 40 8-year-olds) removed the notational trace in drawing (a possible aid for procedural interruption) but this still produced no evidence of a relation between procedural rigidity and representational change. We suggest how the concept of procedural rigidity might be re-interpreted for the drawing domain so that the RR model can remain as a domain-general theory of cognitive development. We also suggest the development of information processing may be crucial for flexibility in drawing.     

The representational framework in perceptual theory

The representational stance in perceptual theory is described and its proper domain of application is examined. A decision rule for invoking representation is proposed but, although the rule is principled, its implementation is problematic. Despite the widespread appeaLof therepresentational stance, detailed working out of the position within perceptual theory is still needed.     

An evolutionary function of the depressive reaction: the cognitive map hypothesis

Existing hypotheses for an evolutionary function of depression are insufficient, primarily because they fail to show convincingly the advantages that might compensate for the high evolutionary costs of its features, such as general passivity, decreased appetite and sex drive.In this article, it is shown that depression may have the function of motivating a period of reduced activity after a major loss. It thus allows for time out to update the cognitive structures for altered circumstances, and avoids dangerous actions based on the use of inadequate cognitive maps. This cognitive map hypothesis provides a viable evolutionary explanation for the high incidence of depression reaction, in spite of its apparently unfavorable characteristics. The article discusses how this hypothesis may also shed light on the occurrence of clinical depression, proposing that it is caused by a failure to update complex conceptual cognitive structures. Finally, recommendations for the treatment of depression that derive from this hypothesis are presented.     

Amygdala circuitry in attentional and representational processes

The amygdala has long been implicated in the display of emotional behavior and emotional information processing, especially in the context of aversive events. In this review, we discuss recent evidence that links the amygdala to several aspects of food-motivated associative learning, including functions often characterized as attention, reinforcement and representation. Each of these functions depends on the operation of separate amygdalar subsystems, through their connections with other brain systems. Notably, very different processing systems seem to be mediated by the central nucleus and basolateral amygdala, subregions of the amygdala that differ in their anatomy and in their connectivity. The basolateral amygdala is involved in the acquisition and representation of reinforcement value, apparently through its connections with ventral striatal dopamine systems and with the orbitofrontal cortex. The dentral nucleus, however, contributes heavily to attentional function in conditioning, by way of its influence on basal forebrain cholinergic systems and on the dorsolateral striatum.     

Vertical representational biases in healthy university students

In line bisection tasks neurologically intact individuals tend to bisect lines slightly left of their midpoint for horizontal lines, and above centre for vertical lines, a phenomenon known as perceptual pseudoneglect (Bowers & Heilman, 1980; Van Vugt, Fransen, Creten, & Paquiner, 2000). Recent investigations have demonstrated the leftward bias to extend to mental imagery, a finding known as representational pseudoneglect (McGeorge, Beschin, Colnaghi, Rusconi, & Della Sala, 2007). This paper examined whether the upward bias found in perceptual tasks extended to mental imagery in healthy individuals. University students studied a diagram depicting a central character and target objects that were located in six positions relative to the person in the diagram (left/right, up/down, and front/back). Following learning, participants recalled the locations of the objects from several imagined orientations. Performance on the recall task revealed faster response latencies for upward targets, providing evidence for vertical representational biases in healthy individuals.     

Comprehension of the representational mind in infancy

A broad array of infant studies are reviewed that appear to be consistent with the idea that belief understanding specifically, and mental attribution generally, emerge much earlier than previously acknowledged. We first examine existing false-belief research, which, while confirming that children under 4 years perform poorly on standard tests, suggests nevertheless that they have more implicit understanding of beliefs than they can express. After surveying theories that both favor and reject early development of theory of mind (TOM), we address two recent bodies of visual fixation research that provide support for the possibility of knowledge and belief attribution in infancy. The first indicates that infants of 13–15 months are sensitive to others’ false beliefs (and therefore have a representational TOM), the second, that by 12 months or younger infants have two antecedently related psychological understandings: (a) that when agents look they “see” and (b) that seeing plays a presumptive role in producing knowledge. This raises the broader question of whether “mentalism” might be part of core knowledge, which takes us to the earliest manifestation of psychological attribution, the construal of agentive behavior as intentional. Contrary to previous assumptions, recent studies indicate that infants of 3–9 months do not accord intentionality exclusively to humans or to self-propelled objects but rather to any entity that: (1) chooses flexibly among means and ends, (2) responds non-randomly to social overtures, and (3) reacts rationally to changing circumstances (i.e., that is not a mere automaton but is selectively and adaptively responsive to the environment). Other evidence is then examined which suggests that infants begin to construe these and other behaviors in mentalist rather than teleological terms much earlier than expected. Finally, the implications of this empirical record for domain-specific and domain-general theories of TOM are considered.     

Exhibiting interpretational and representational validity

A natural language argument may be valid in at least two nonequivalent senses: it may be interpretationally or representationally valid (Etchemendy in The concept of logical consequence. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1990). Interpretational and representational validity can both be formally exhibited by classical first-order logic. However, as these two notions of informal validity differ extensionally and first-order logic fixes one determinate extension for the notion of formal validity (or consequence), some arguments must be formalized by unrelated nonequivalent formalizations in order to formally account for their interpretational or representational validity, respectively. As a consequence, arguments must be formalized subject to different criteria of adequate formalization depending on which variant of informal validity is to be revealed. This paper develops different criteria that formalizations of an argument have to satisfy in order to exhibit the latter’s interpretational or representational validity.     

Toward an integrative approach of cognitive neuroscientific and evolutionary psychological studies of art

This paper examines explanations for human artistic behavior in two reductionist research programs, cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology. Despite their different methodological outlooks, both approaches converge on an explanation of art production and appreciation as byproducts of normal perceptual and motivational cognitive skills that evolved in response to problems originally not related to art, such as the discrimination of salient visual stimuli and speech sounds. The explanatory power of this reductionist framework does not obviate the need for higher-level accounts of art from the humanities, such as aesthetics, art history or anthropology of art.     

Semantical archaeology: A parable

A somewhat fictionalized account of several interpretations of implication is presented together with comparisons between classical, modal, tense, and intuitionistic logics.     

Psychosexuality and the representational world.

The sensual experiences, fantasies and enactments that occur in the course of normal development are seen as psychic organizers which contribute vitally to the structuralization of the representational world. In the sexual perversions which occur in structurally deficient, developmentally arrested individuals, this function of early psychosexual experiences has been retained and is regressively relied upon in order to restore or sustain the cohesion and stability of crumbling, fragmenting or disintegrating self and object representations. Analytic exploration of the details of perverse fantasies and acts, their origins and functions, reveals the particular ways in which they compensate for specific structural weaknesses in patients' representational worlds. Some clinical illustrations and therapeutic implications of these formulations are briefly presented.     

The representational basis of syllable categories

Two hypotheses concerning the relation between phoneme and syllable categories are contrasted. The phonological hypothesis holds that phoneme categories are perceptually basic, whereas syllable categories are abstract and specify the phonological rules operating on phoneme categories. The integrative routine hypothesis suggests that whereas phoneme categories are basic, syllable categories are not entirely abstract but are represented at least partially on the basis of higher order perceptual information, specifying the dynamics of coarticulating phoneme categories. Three experiments used a primed naming task in which subjects had to name the entire syllable (consonant-vowel and vowel-consonant; Experiment 1), the syllable-initial phoneme category (Experiment 2), or the syllable-final phoneme category (Experiment 3). The results supported the integrative routine hypothesis. S.D. is a postdoctoral fellow of the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research.     

The pointedness effect on representational momentum

An observer's memory for the final position of a moving object is shifted forward in the direction of that object's motion. It is called representational momentum (RM). This study addressed stimulus-specific effects on RM. In Experiment 1, participants showed larger memory shift for an object moving in its typical direction of motion than when it moved in a nontypical direction of motion. In Experiment 2, participants indicated larger memory shift for a pointed pattern moving in the direction of its point than when it moved in the opposite direction. In Experiment 3, we again examined the influences of knowledge about objects' typical motions and the pointedness of objects, because we did not control the shape (pointedness) of objects in Experiment 1. The results showed that only pointedness affected the magnitude of memory shift and that the effect was smaller than the momentum effect.