Internalism, active externalism, and nonconceptual content: the ins and outs of cognition

Active externalism (also known as the extended mind hypothesis) says that we use objects and situations in the world as external memory stores that we consult as needs dictate. This gives us economies of storage: We do not need to remember that Bill has blue eyes and wavy hair if we can acquire this information by looking at Bill. I argue for a corollary to this position, which I call 'internalism.' Internalism says we can acquire knowledge on a need-to-know basis by consulting portable, inner analogues of the world. This, however, leads to a dilemma. If the knowledge was stored in memory, it is difficult to see how we could have acquired it by consulting inner analogues, for it would seem that we knew it already. Moreover, if it was stored in memory, we lose the economies of storage that provide much of the rationale for external memory stores and hence for their inner analogues. If, on the other hand, the knowledge was not stored in memory, it is difficult to see how we could have acquired it by consulting inner analogues, for it was not there to be acquired. I propose a solution to this problem that turns on the concept of nonconceptual content, and I relate the solution to Stephen Kosslyn's (1994) architecture of perception and visual mental imagery. Viewed in a broader context, the solution shows that the world leaks into the mind, as well as mind leaking into the world.     

Short article one's own face is hard to ignore

One's own face possesses two properties that make it prone to grab attention: It is a face, and, in addition, it is a self-referential stimulus. The question of whether the self-face is actually an especially attention-grabbing stimulus was addressed by using a face–name interference paradigm. We investigated whether interference from a flanking self-face on the processing of a target classmate's name was stronger than interference from a classmate's flanking face on the processing of one's own name as the target. In a control condition a third familiar face served as the flanker for both decisions from the participant's own name and from the classmate's name. The presentation of the self-face as a flanker produced significantly more interference on the identification of a classmate's name than the presentation of that classmate's face did on the identification of one's own name. This result was due to the interfering power of the self-face and not to a particular resistance of one's name to interfering facial stimuli. We argue that the emotional value or the high familiarity of one's own face may explain its attention-grabbing property.     

《周易》象数对中国明堂礼制建筑的影响——以唐《定明堂规制诏》为例

“明堂”不仅是宗教祭祀的一种建筑象征,而且是上古政治活动的历史标志.本文以唐《定明堂规制诏》为例,通过分析其对明堂布局规模建制等的规定,阐述明堂建筑与易学象敬密切的联系,体现出作为中国哲学文化、天文和数学等结合的“易数”,在中国传统建筑尤其是礼制建筑中的重要应用,并为中国传统建筑研究提供了新思路.     

Criteria for the design and evaluation of cognitive architectures

Cognitive architectures are unified theories of cognition that take the form of computational formalisms. They support computational models that collectively account for large numbers of empirical regularities using small numbers of computational mechanisms. Empirical coverage and parsimony are the most prominent criteria by which architectures are designed and evaluated, but they are not the only ones. This paper considers three additional criteria that have been comparatively undertheorized. (a) Successful architectures possess subjective and intersubjective meaning, making cognition comprehensible to individual cognitive scientists and organizing groups of like-minded cognitive scientists into genuine communities. (b) Successful architectures provide idioms that structure the design and interpretation of computational models. (c) Successful architectures are strange: They make provocative, often disturbing, and ultimately compelling claims about human information processing that demand evaluation.     

急性脑梗死早期OCSP分型的临床应用评价

为了研究急性脑梗死早期OCSP（Oxfordshire Community Stroke Projet）分型的应用价值,连续收集首次发病的脑梗死患者326例,按OCSP分型分为完全前循环梗死（TACI）、部分前循环梗死（PACI）、腔隙性脑梗死（LACI）、后循环梗死（PCI）,入组后各亚型比较急性期神经功能缺损评分和结构影像学特征,3个月的病死率和日常生活活动（ADL）能力评分。显示,TACI大面积脑梗死占74．4％,PACI中等面积脑梗死占64．5%。LACI腔隙灶脑梗死占90％,POCI大面积脑梗死占22．7％,中等面积脑梗死占40.9％,小梗死占36.4％。急性期神经功能缺损以TACI最严重,PACI和POCI次之,LACI最轻,TACI与其他各型之间,PACI和POCI与LACI之间的差异均有极显著性意义（P〈0．0005）,PACI和POCI之间差异无显著性意义（P〉0．05）。TACI的病死率为44．2％,PACI为10．2%,POCI为18．2%赫,LACI为2．6％,TACI病死率与各型比较有极显著性意义（P〈0．01）.TAC13个月的ADL为重度依赖,POCI为中度依赖,另2个亚型均为轻度依赖,有极显著性意义（P〈0．005）。由此得出结论,OCSP分型与影像学有良好对应关系。不同的OCSP分型可以反映脑梗死急性期神经功能缺损的严重程度,OCSP分型有利于脑梗死急性期个体化治疗选择。     

Guiding Decision Makers' Eye Movements with (Un)Predictable Object Locations

We propose a new approach for guiding eye movements by controlling the predictability of object locations. We hypothesize that when a high (low) relevance object has a predictable location, observers are more (less) likely to fixate it compared with objects in unpredictable locations. We tested this hypothesis in three decision‐making studies, manipulating the location of a product label in an unpredictable, a predictable, and a mixed visual environment. In Study 1 and Study 2, we find that participants are less likely to fixate a low and medium relevance label in a predictable location, and in Study 3, we find that participants are more likely to fixate a high relevance label in a predictable location. Our findings suggest that predictable locations increase while unpredictable locations decrease top‐down control. The approach can be used to increase or decrease eye movements towards specific information depending on the goals of the choice architect. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Let sacred buildings speak: Durham Cathedral and the Jerusalem Temple

This article uses a comparison between Durham Cathedral and the Temple at Jerusalem to argue for the ability of sacred buildings to exercise a religious role in their own right. Although obviously initially dependent on human action for their existence, when built they can then, it is argued, take on a life of their own. While negative influences are frequently noted, here it is positive dimensions that are stressed: first, in respect of experiences of the divine; then, secondly, of their ability to encourage learning from outside the specific faith context; before, thirdly, note is taken of their potential to encourage appropriate moral and political action. Finally, a response is offered to the common objection to such positive evaluation based on the alleged indifference of the early church to sacred buildings.     

Biologically Plausible,Human‐Scale Knowledge Representation

Several approaches to implementing symbol‐like representations in neurally plausible models have been proposed. These approaches include binding through synchrony (Shastri & Ajjanagadde, 1993 ), “mesh” binding (van der Velde & de Kamps, 2006 ), and conjunctive binding (Smolensky, 1990 ). Recent theoretical work has suggested that most of these methods will not scale well, that is, that they cannot encode structured representations using any of the tens of thousands of terms in the adult lexicon without making implausible resource assumptions. Here, we empirically demonstrate that the biologically plausible structured representations employed in the Semantic Pointer Architecture (SPA) approach to modeling cognition (Eliasmith, 2013 ) do scale appropriately. Specifically, we construct a spiking neural network of about 2.5 million neurons that employs semantic pointers to successfully encode and decode the main lexical relations in WordNet, which has over 100,000 terms. In addition, we show that the same representations can be employed to construct recursively structured sentences consisting of arbitrary WordNet concepts, while preserving the original lexical structure. We argue that these results suggest that semantic pointers are uniquely well‐suited to providing a biologically plausible account of the structured representations that underwrite human cognition.     

Using TD learning to simulate working memory performance in a model of the prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia

Delayed-response tasks (DRTs) have been used to assess working memory (WM) processes in human and nonhuman animals. Experiments have shown that the basal ganglia (BG) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) subserve DRT performance. Here, we report the results of simulation studies of a systems-level model of DRT performance. The model was trained using the temporal difference (TD) algorithm and uses an actor-critic architecture. The matrisomes of the BG represent the actor and the striosomes represent the critic. Unlike existing models, we hypothesize that the BG subserve the selection of both motor- and cognitive-related information in these tasks. We also assume that the learning of both processes is based on reward presentation. A novel feature of the model is the incorporation of delay-active neurons in the matrisomes, in addition to DLPFC. Another novel feature of the model is the subdivision of the matrisomal neurons into segregated winner-take-all (WTA) networks consisting of delay- versus transiently-active units.Our simulation model proposes a new neural mechanism to account for the occurrence of perseverative responses in WM tasks in striatal-, as well as in prefrontal damaged subjects. Simulation results also show that the model both accounts for the phenomenon of time shifting of dopamine phasic signals and the effects of partial reinforcement and reward magnitude on WM performance at both behavioral and neural levels. Our simulation results also found that the TD algorithm can subserve learning in delayed-reversal tasks.