Spatial ability and sensory interaction: Analog and propositional representation

To provide coverging support that the proper integration of analog and propositional representational systems is associated with spatial ability, visual, auditory and bimodal brain event-related potentials were recorded from 50 right-handed Caucasian males. Sensory interaction indices were derived for these Ss who had taken the Surface Development Test of spatial ability. Product-moment correlations were computed between sensory interaction indices for eight cerebral sites and spatial ability test scores. Sensory interaction for left- and right-hemispheric regions was significantly related to spatial ability. As sensory suppression lessened, spatial ability increased. The results substantiated the theory that the visual-imaginal-analog and the auditory-verbal-propositional representational systems are implicated in spatial ability. The extent to which the cortex can inhibit or attenuate the interaction or integration between these dual-symbol systems is associated with complicated spatial task performance.     

感觉记忆中含语义对象的视觉表征

感觉记忆能够以特征形式构建对视觉对象表面信息的表征, 然而对于具有重要意义的潜在抽象信息, 尚未有研究考察其是否影响感觉记忆的视觉表征。结合掩蔽技术与部分报告法范式考察了感觉记忆的视觉表征中是否包含语义信息。以阿拉伯数字作为目标, 实验1与实验2分别采用正立与倒置的汉字大写数字作为掩蔽刺激, 比较其与白噪音刺激的掩蔽效应。结果显示, 汉字大写数字的掩蔽效应均强于白噪音刺激, 且正立汉字大写数字的掩蔽效果较倒置汉字大写数字更强。实验3采用汉字大写数字与汉字常用字分别作为掩蔽刺激, 结果显示汉字大写数字的掩蔽效果强于汉字常用字。上述结果显示, 刺激间的语义相似性带来了视觉表征冲突, 表明感觉记忆的视觉表征中包含了刺激的语义信息。     

Qualitative differences in the representation of abstract versus concrete words: Evidence from the visual-world paradigm

In the present visual-world experiment, participants were presented with visual displays that included a target item that was a semantic associate of an abstract or a concrete word. This manipulation allowed us to test a basic prediction derived from the qualitatively different representational framework that supports the view of different organizational principles for concrete and abstract words in semantic memory. Our results confirm the assumption of a primary organizational principle based on association for abstract words, different from the semantic similarity principle proposed for concrete words, and provide the first piece of evidence in support of this view obtained from healthy participants. The results shed light on the representational structure of abstract and concrete concepts.     

Character, character type, and character organization

This paper explores the relevance of the concept of character organization for psychoanalysis and argues for its usefulness in preserving what is specific to character. Character organization is viewed as a bridge concept between the observable and the structural, the role of fantasy and object relations in development, and as a convenient way of describing certain global phenomena not easily encompassed by the structural theory or compromise formation.     

Learning representation hierarchies by sharing visual features: a computational investigation of Persian character recognition with unsupervised deep learning

In humans, efficient recognition of written symbols is thought to rely on a hierarchical processing system, where simple features are progressively combined into more abstract, high-level representations. Here, we present a computational model of Persian character recognition based on deep belief networks, where increasingly more complex visual features emerge in a completely unsupervised manner by fitting a hierarchical generative model to the sensory data. Crucially, high-level internal representations emerging from unsupervised deep learning can be easily read out by a linear classifier, achieving state-of-the-art recognition accuracy. Furthermore, we tested the hypothesis that handwritten digits and letters share many common visual features: A generative model that captures the statistical structure of the letters distribution should therefore also support the recognition of written digits. To this aim, deep networks trained on Persian letters were used to build high-level representations of Persian digits, which were indeed read out with high accuracy. Our simulations show that complex visual features, such as those mediating the identification of Persian symbols, can emerge from unsupervised learning in multilayered neural networks and can support knowledge transfer across related domains.     

非符号数量表征和符号分数表征的关系

个体学习符号分数的一个关键是能对其数值形成准确表征。现有研究假设符号分数表征的认知基础是人类自婴幼儿期就具有的非符号数量表征(如表征两个集合各自的数量, 或两个数量的比例)。其证据包括表征非符号数量(尤其是非符号数量比例关系)和表征符号分数在行为和大脑神经活动层面上都表现出相关性。然而要说明非符号数量表征是符号分数表征的认知基础, 还需更多研究表明两者在数量概念上的独特相关和因果联系, 并阐明符号分数表征形成的认知机制。     

Epistemic representation, informativeness and the aim of faithful representation

In this paper, I take scientific models to be epistemic representations of their target systems. I define an epistemic representation to be a tool for gaining information about its target system and argue that a vehicle’s capacity to provide specific information about its target system—its informativeness—is an essential feature of this kind of representation. I draw an analogy to our ordinary notion of interpretation to show that a user’s aim of faithfully representing the target system is necessary for securing this feature.     

Qualitative properties and relations

Philosophical Studies - This paper is concerned with two concepts of qualitativeness that apply to intensional entities (i.e., properties, relations, and states of affairs). I propose an account of...     

Temporal representation and dynamics

Six hypotheses about the relation between the temporal content of perception and the temporality of perceptual processes are identified and discussed. The positions are determined by different stands on three questions: whether the content of perception is an interval or an instant; whether it is a passive reflection or an active construction, and whether or not it is purposefully delayed. The trajectory estimation model, according to which perceptual content is a non-delayed, actively constructed interval, is articulated and defended against the other positions. The main tool used in defending this approach is the existence of certain kinds of temporal illusion, situations in which the apparent temporal features of the perceived situation differs the temporal features of the situation itself.     

Predication and cartographic representation

I argue that maps do not feature predication, as analyzed by Frege and Tarski. I take as my foil (Casati and Varzi, Parts and places, 1999), which attributes predication to maps. I argue that the details of Casati and Varzi’s own semantics militate against this attribution. Casati and Varzi emphasize what I call the Absence Intuition: if a marker representing some property (such as mountainous terrain) appears on a map, then absence of that marker from a map coordinate signifies absence of the corresponding property from the corresponding location. Predication elicits nothing like the Absence Intuition. “F(a)” does not, in general, signify that objects other than a lack property F. On the basis of this asymmetry, I argue that attaching a marker to map coordinates is a different mode of semantic composition than attaching a predicate to a singular term.     

Primitive representation and misrepresentation

This paper develops a statistical approach to the problem of primitive representation. Representation of the kind commonly attributed to litmus paper, fuel gauges and tree rings occurs when, so to speak, there is a sufficiently good correlation between two variables. The fundamental distinction between misrepresentation and non-representation is explained in terms of the notion of an informationally useful correlation. The paper further argues that the statistical approach satisfactorily resolves well known puzzles such as Fodor's disjunction problem.     

Memory traces and representation

Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences -     

Reasoning and mental representation

Four experiments exploring the effects of the coherence of a mental representation of material on reasoning performance are presented. Each employs a simple task that allows most subjects at some stage to solve the problem. We postulate that the crucial factor influencing performance is a unified representation of the material. In Experiment 1 we use an authorization of a kind familiar in daily life, and in Experiments 2, 3 and 4 we use sentences describing simple objects in different ways. In each case performance was enhanced when the material could be given a unified representation.     

Humor and strengths of character

Humor in the Values in Action (VIA) Classification of Strengths is conceptualized as a unipolar and unidimensional strength and is subsumed under the virtue of transcendence. Its scope is intentionally restricted to forms of humor that serve some moral good. The present study (N?=?203) investigated the relation between five dimensions of humorous conduct, sense of humor, and the VIA-Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS). Results show (1) that the VIA-humor correlated with socially warm and competent humor, and the sense of humor, all with a common basis in humanity. (2) Each humor style showed relations to strengths. Additionally, strengths related to the virtue of temperance were also related to not showing mean-spirited and earthy forms of humor. Hence, humor in the VIA-IS can be well-located in established humor taxonomies, but does not cover all of the virtue-related humorous behaviors. Further research is requested to investigate the role of virtue in humor.     

Attentional capture and attentional character

Attentional character is a way of thinking about what is relevant in a human life, what is meaningful and how it becomes so. This paper introduces the concept of attentional character through a redefinition of attentional capture as achievement. It looks freshly at the attentional capture debate in the current cognitive sciences literature through the lens of Aron Gurwitsch’s gestalt-phenomenology. Attentional character is defined as an initially limited capacity for attending in a given environment and is located within the sphere of attention, primarily as an irrelevant centering in attending.