Book Reviews

Scruton, Roger Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey
Fraser, Nancy and Bartky, Sandra Lee (eds) Revaluing French Feminisms: Critical Essays on Difference, Agency and Culture
Friedman, Marilyn What are Friends For? Feminist Perspectives on Personal Relationships and Moral Theory     

Directions in Connectionist Research: Tractable Computations Without Syntactically Structured Representations

Should connectionists abandon the quest for tractably computable cognitive transition functions while retaining syntactically structured mental representations? We argue, in opposition to Horgan, that it should not. We argue that the case against tractably computable functions, based upon the claimed isotropic and Quinean character of cognition, fails since cognition is not as isotropic and Quinean as Fodor and Horgan contend. Moreover, we illustrate how current research in both connectionism and cognitive neuroscience suggests that tractability can be preserved through division of overall computations into modular sub-processes, each of which is tractable. As to syntactically structured representations, we argue that they are unneeded for most cognitive tasks organisms confront, and that when they are needed, they may be provided by external representational media such as natural language. Moreover, we note that increasingly cognitive linguistics has become the ally of connectionism and that the research program of cognitive linguistics suggests that abilities to use natural languages may be developed without requiring syntactically structured mental representations to exist prior to natural language.     

Information Retrieval in Tip of the Tongue States: New Data and Methodological Advances

Research on Tip of the Tongue (ToT) states has been used to determine whether access to syntactic information precedes access to phonological information. This paper argues that previous studies have used insufficient analyses when investigating the nature of seriality of access. In the first part of this paper, these complex issues are discussed and suitable analyses proposed. In the second part, new experimental data are presented. In Experiment 1, English speakers were asked to give information about mass/count status and initial phoneme of nouns, when in a ToT state. In Experiment 2, German speakers were asked to report grammatical gender and initial phoneme of nouns, when in a ToT state. Evidence that syntactic and phonological information are accessed independently was obtained for both languages. Implications for models of language production and further methodological issues in ToT research are discussed.     

Job search as goal-directed behavior: Objectives and methods

This study investigated the relationship between job search objectives (finding a new job/turnover, staying aware of job alternatives, developing a professional network, and obtaining leverage against an employer) and job search methods (looking at job ads, visiting job sites, networking, contacting employment agencies, contacting employers, and submitting applications). In a sample of 205 employed individuals from Belgium and Romania, job search objectives were significantly related to job search methods even after job satisfaction was controlled. Furthermore, particular objectives predicted specific methods. While the finding a new job/turnover objective predicted all search methods, staying aware of alternatives predicted using job ads and sites; the network objective predicted networking and contacting employers; and the leverage objective predicted contacting employers. Results suggest that search objectives are important for understanding job seekers’ search behavior and support the view that job search is a self-regulatory process that begins with objectives which activate search behavior.     

Multi-objective combinatorial optimization problems: A survey

In the last 20 years many multi-objective linear programming (MOLP) methods with continuous variables have been developed. However, in many real-world applications discrete variables must be introduced. It is well known that MOLP problems with discrete variables can have special difficulties and so cannot be solved by simply combining discrete programming methods and multi-objective programming methods. The present paper is intended to review the existing literature on multi-objective combinatorial optimization (MOCO) problems. Various classical combinatorial problems are examined in a multi-criteria framework. Some conclusions are drawn and directions for future research are suggested.     

Re-framing the characteristics of concepts and their relation to learning and cognition in artificial agents

In this work, the problems of knowledge acquisition and information processing are explored in relation to the definitions of concepts and conceptual processing, and their implications for artificial agents.The discussion focuses on views of cognition as a dynamic property in which the world is actively represented in grounded mental states which only have meaning in the action context. Reasoning is understood as an emerging property consequence of actions-environment couplings achieved through experience, and concepts as situated and dynamic phenomena enabling behaviours.Re-framing the characteristics of concepts is considered crucial to overcoming settled beliefs and reinterpreting new understandings in artificial systems.The first part presents a review of concepts from cognitive sciences. Support is found for views on grounded and embodied cognition, describing concepts as dynamic, flexible, context-dependent, and distributedly coded.That is argued to contrast with many technical implementations assuming concepts as categories, whilst explains limitations when grounding amodal symbols, or in unifying learning, perception and reasoning.The characteristics of concepts are linked to methods of active inference, self-organization, and deep learning to address challenges posed and to reinterpret emerging techniques.In a second part, an architecture based on deep generative models is presented to illustrate arguments elaborated. It is evaluated in a navigation task, showing that sufficient representations are created regarding situated behaviours with no semantics imposed on data. Moreover, adequate behaviours are achieved through a dynamic integration of perception and action in a single representational domain and process.     

The Role of Social Network Structure in the Emergence of Linguistic Structure

Social network structure has been argued to shape the structure of languages, as well as affect the spread of innovations and the formation of conventions in the community. Specifically, theoretical and computational models of language change predict that sparsely connected communities develop more systematic languages, while tightly knit communities can maintain high levels of linguistic complexity and variability. However, the role of social network structure in the cultural evolution of languages has never been tested experimentally. Here, we present results from a behavioral group communication study, in which we examined the formation of new languages created in the lab by micro-societies that varied in their network structure. We contrasted three types of social networks: fully connected, small-world, and scale-free. We examined the artificial languages created by these different networks with respect to their linguistic structure, communicative success, stability, and convergence. Results did not reveal any effect of network structure for any measure, with all languages becoming similarly more systematic, more accurate, more stable, and more shared over time. At the same time, small-world networks showed the greatest variation in their convergence, stabilization, and emerging structure patterns, indicating that network structure can influence the community's susceptibility to random linguistic changes (i.e., drift).     

The Aesthetic Import of the Act of Knowledge and its European Roots in Merab Mamardašvili

What Mamardašvili meant by “process of knowledge” is not an all-embracing vision of reality accomplished “once-and-for-all”; it is not a step by step procedure of deduction; rather it is an anti-dialectical reconstruction of a constellation of signs put together over and over again by the subject by an act of non-premeditated genius. It is a kind of aesthetic act that makes the sense appear, like a vertical cut in the sequential line of space and time.     

Normal executive attention but abnormal orienting attention in individuals with sluggish cognitive tempo

Background/objective: Sluggish Cognitive Tempo (SCT) is an attentional disorder characterized by the symptoms of slowness in behavior or thinking, a lack of en.ergy, difficulty initiating and sustaining effort, daydreaming, and drowsiness. The aim of the present study was to investigate the distinctive attentional characteristics of SCT as compared to Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Method: A total of 110 adults were recruited and divided into four groups: SCT+ADHD, SCT, ADHD, and healthy controls. The Revised version of Attention Networks Test was used to investigate each group’s attentional profile. Results: The results revealed that the two SCT groups (SCT+ADHD and SCT) showed a significantly weaker orienting network due to the problems of engaging and disengaging attention than the other two groups. Additionally, the two ADHD groups (SCT+ADHD and ADHD) showed a significantly weaker executive control network than the other two groups. Conclusions: The findings demonstrate an attentional distinction between the SCT and the ADHD groups with a greater dysfunction in the orienting network in the SCT group as compared to the ADHD group. Furthermore, a greater executive control dysfunction was observed in the ADHD group as compared to the SCT group.