Cogprints: No conditions. Results ordered Title. 2018-01-17T14:20:28ZEPrintshttp://cogprints.org/images/sitelogo.gifhttp://cogprints.org/2000-10-16Z2011-03-11T08:54:25Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1026This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/10262000-10-16ZThe Abduction of Disorder in PsychiatryThe evolutionary cornerstone of J. C. Wakefield's (1999) harmful dysfunction thesis is a faulty assumption of comparability between mental and biological processes that overlooks the unique plasticity and openness of the brain?s functioning design. This omission leads Wakefield to an idealized concept of natural mental functions, illusory interpretations of mental disorders as harmful dysfunctions, and exaggerated claims for the validity of his explanatory and stipulative proposals. The authors argue that there are numerous ways in which evolutionarily intact mental and psychological processes, combined with striking discontinuities within and between evolutionary and contemporary social/cultural environments, may cause non-dysfunction variants of many widely accepted major mental disorders. These examples undermine many of Wakefield's arguments for adopting a harmful dysfunction concept of mental disorder.John E. RichtersStephen P. Hinshaw2004-09-03Z2011-03-11T08:55:40Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3782This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/37822004-09-03ZACCESSING REFERENTIAL INFORMATION DURING TEXT COMPOSITION :
WHEN AND WHY ?When composing a text, writers have to continually shift between content planning and content translating. This continuous shifting gives the writing activity its cyclic nature. The first section of this paper will analyse the writing process as a hierarchical cyclic activity. A methodological paradigm will be proposed for the investigation of the writing process. In the second section, we will partially present two experiments that were conducted independently, with this paradigm. Both give a coherent and interesting picture of what happens with content while the writer is planning. The characteristics of cycles depend both on the nature of the content information being recovered and on the complexity of the processes applied to this content.Christophe DansacDenis Alamargot2000-03-21Z2011-03-11T08:54:04Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/557This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5572000-03-21ZThe adaptationist stance and evolutionary computationIn this paper the connections between the evolutionary paradigm called adaptationism and the field of evolutionary computation (EC) will be outlined. After giving an introduction to adaptationism we will try to show that the so called adaptational stance can be applied in EC as well as in biology and this application may have significant benefits. It will also be shown that this approach has serious, inherent limitations in both cases especially in the case of EC, because we lack the language which could be used to form the theories, but these representational limitations can be handled by devoting efforts to construct this language.Mark Jelasity1999-08-05Z2011-03-11T08:54:18Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/820This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8201999-08-05ZAligning logical and psychological perspectives on diagrammatic reasoningWe advance a theoretical framework which combines recent insights of research in logic, psychology, and formal semantics, on the nature of diagrammatic representation and reasoning. In particular, we wish to explain the varied efficacy of reasoning and representing with diagrams. In general we consider diagrammatic representations to be restricted in expressive power, and we wish to explain efficacy of reasoning with diagrams via the semantical and computational properties of such restricted `languages'. Connecting these foundational insights (from semantics and complexity theory) to the psychology of reasoning with diagrams requires us to develop the notion of the {\it availability} (to an agent) of {\it constraints} operating within representation systems, as a consequence of their direct semantic interpretation. Thus we offer a number of fundamental definitions as well as a research programme which aligns current efforts in the logical and psychological analysis of diagrammatic representation systems.Keith StenningOliver Lemon2002-10-22Z2011-03-11T08:55:05Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2547This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/25472002-10-22ZAmplifying Phenomenal Information: Toward a Fundamental Theory of ConsciousnessFundamental approaches bypass the problem of getting consciousness from non-conscious components by positing that consciousness is a universal primitive. For example, the double aspect theory of information holds that information has a phenomenal aspect. How then do you get from phenomenal information to human consciousness? This paper proposes that an entity is conscious to the extent it amplifies information, first by trapping and integrating it through closure, and second by maintaining dynamics at the edge of chaos through simultaneous processes of divergence and convergence. The origin of life through autocatalytic closure, and the origin of an interconnected worldview through conceptual closure, induced phase transitions in the degree to which information, and thus consciousness, is locally amplified. Divergence and convergence of cognitive information may involve phenomena observed in light e.g. focusing, interference, and resonance. By making information flow inward-biased, closure shields us from external consciousness; thus the paucity of consciousness may be an illusion.
Liane Gabora2004-08-13Z2011-03-11T08:54:40Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1555This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/15552004-08-13ZAre Theories of Imagery Theories of Imagination? An Active Perception Approach to Conscious Mental Content.Can theories of mental imagery, conscious mental contents, developed within cognitive science throw light on the obscure (but culturally very significant) concept of imagination? Three extant views of mental imagery are considered: quasi-pictorial, description, and perceptual activity theories. The first two face serious theoretical and empirical difficulties. The third is (for historically contingent reasons) little known, theoretically underdeveloped, and empirically untried, but has real explanatory potential. It rejects the "traditional" symbolic computational view of mental contents, but is compatible with recent *situated cognition* and *active vision* approaches in robotics. This theory is developed and elucidated. Three related key aspects of imagination (non-discursiveness, creativity, and *seeing as*) raise difficulties for the other theories. Perceptual activity theory presents imagery as non-discursive and relates it closely to *seeing as*. It is thus well placed to be the basis for a general theory of imagination and its role in creative thought.Nigel J. T. Thomas2006-08-01Z2011-03-11T08:56:32Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5018This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/50182006-08-01ZAre Theories of Imagery Theories of Imagination? An Active Perception Approach to Conscious Mental Content.Can theories of mental imagery, conscious mental contents, developed within cognitive science throw light on the obscure (but culturally very significant) concept of imagination? Three extant views of mental imagery are considered: quasi-pictorial, description, and perceptual activity theories. The first two face serious theoretical and empirical difficulties. The third is (for historically contingent reasons) little known, theoretically underdeveloped, and empirically untried, but has real explanatory potential. It rejects the "traditional" symbolic computational view of mental contents, but is compatible with recent *situated cognition* and *active vision* approaches in robotics. This theory is developed and elucidated. Three related key aspects of imagination (non-discursiveness, creativity, and *seeing as*) raise difficulties for the other theories. Perceptual activity theory presents imagery as non-discursive and relates it closely to *seeing as*. It is thus well placed to be the basis for a general theory of imagination and its role in creative thought.Nigel J. T. Thomas1999-10-19Z2011-03-11T08:53:44Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/221This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2211999-10-19ZASPECTS OF METALINGUISTIC ACTIVITYThe naive language user acts as the subject investigating (and creating) language. The metalinguistic component is singled out as one of those components of language activity that exercise an essential influence upon its organization and process. Anyhow, metalanguage activity is also carried out in a more explicit manner: from clearly expressed "personal theories" of language study and activity, to less obvious beliefs concerning the essence and the character of language units and actions mythologemes of language activity. As well as any other activity, metalanguage activity is governed by dynamic stereotyped patterns, which form a mythological picture of the life of language and of the life in language as environment. It is essential for understanding human language activity to disclose these implicit mechanisms. All words in language seem to possess a mythological nature. Besides, one can also distinguish mythologemes of general systemic and procedural character, without which language would not be able to exist and to be executed. Mythologemes of this kind constitute the language game as such: the "thingness" of words and the natural discreteness of their meanings. The mythological character of the users attitude to the words of language comes to light when roles are changed: when the included observer who is usually within the limits of the 'circle of language' (Humboldts metaphor) changes his role to that of a meta-observer. The negative influence of mythologemes on language activity is associated with the swap of positions and temporary moments of the actual language process. Many mythologemes in language teaching are formed on the basis (or bias) of the mechanistic determinism not only of everyday knowledge, but also that of school grammars. A systematic study of proto-scientific and implicit knowledge of language should bring its contribution both to understanding the essence of language activity, and to the task of optimizing linguistic technologies (in language teaching, mass communication etc.).Viatcheslav B. Kashkin2008-05-11T02:40:20Z2011-03-11T08:57:07Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/6070This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/60702008-05-11T02:40:20ZAspects sémantiques et syntaxiques de l’accès au lexique lors de la production de parole[IN FRENCH] The speech production processes that have been studied in this thesis are the mechanisms of information processing that bridge the gap between the selection of a message to communicate and the articulation of the words that will covey it. More precisely, we conducted a cognitive study of the processes involved in lexical access. The first part of this thesis is a general introduction to the field that includes a survey of the literature. Secondly, we present a collection of normative data that characterizes an important number of experimental stimuli (pictures and words). The study of the semantic and syntactic aspects of lexical selection is then approached by means of the picture naming paradigm, among others.
The experiments that tackled the role of syntactic information show the existence of a syntactic congruency effect when grammatical gender properties are manipulated. This effect is only present for closed-class primes (determiners) and is not due to the phonological form of the prime-target pairs. It is interpreted as the consequence of an irrepressible binding of the prime and the target. Such a binding is probably due to the influence of a syntactic processing initiated by the prime on the lexical selection of a name for the picture.
The experiments on the semantic aspects show a dissociation between semantics and verbal association in the production system. After being operationally distinguished, theses two kinds of relations showed very different priming patterns. Moreover, these priming effects were differently affected by time parameters. The results are interpreted in the context of models of lexical access during the production of isolated words.Dr. F.-Xavier ALARIOFrancois-Xavier.Alario@univ-provence.fr2002-06-21Z2011-03-11T08:54:23Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/978This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/9782002-06-21ZAutonomy in Anticipatory Systems: Significance for Functionality, Intentionality and MeaningAbstract Many anticipatory systems cannot in
themselves act meaningfully or represent
intentionally. This stems largely from the derivative
nature of their functionality. All current artificial
control systems, and many living systems such as
organs and cellular parts of organisms derive any
intentionality they might have from their designers
or possessors. Derivative functionality requires
reference to some external autonomously functional
system, and derivative intentionality similarly
requires reference to an external autonomous
intentional system. The importance of autonomy
can be summed up in the following slogan: No
meaning without intention; no intention without
function; no function without autonomy. This paper
develops the role of autonomy to show how learning
new tasks is facilitated by autonomy, and further by
representational capacities that are functional for
autonomy.
John Collier2000-06-12Z2011-03-11T08:54:21Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/857This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8572000-06-12ZBeauty and Art Arise in the Brains of BeholdersPerceiving is an active process, it unfolds over time. Beginning at a starting fixation the eyes and the attention of a spectator scan over a visual display until enough data for a satisfactory interpretation of the percept are collected. Modulated by the current context, especially by the expectations of the observer, the process comes to a halt and the perception is concluded with an emotional tag for the total outcome of the action. This means not only the observed different features and the whole of the percept are important but sometimes even more so the way the operation went. Positive emotions usually result from a 'pleasant' content and a successful process, whereas better than expected progress gives rise to special good feelings. Beauty would be but one of the possible emotional signals of this primarily self-monitoring process, which is claimed to underpin all mental activity, conscious and unconscious.Knud Thomsen2000-10-11Z2011-03-11T08:54:23Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1000This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/10002000-10-11ZBeyond the Fringe: James, Gurwitsch, and the Conscious HorizonAll our conscious experiences, linguistic and nonlinguistic, are bound up with and dependent on a background that is vague, unexpressed, and sometimes unconscious. The combination of William JamesÕs concept of "fringes" coupled with Aaron GurwitschÕs analysis of the field of consciousness provides a general structure in which to embed phenomenal descriptions, enabling fringe phenomena to be understood, in part, relative to other experiences. I will argue, drawing on examples from Drew LederÕs book, The Absent Body, that specific and detailed phenomena can and should be interrelated through JamesÕs and GurwitschÕs analyses. I am proposing first that phenomenological descriptions in general could benefit from explicit consideration of the context of the phenomena within the totality of the field of consciousness, and second, that establishing that context requires a general structural model of that field, similar to that provided by Gurwitsch. Steven Ravett Brown1999-04-30Z2011-03-11T08:54:02Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/537This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5371999-04-30ZBinding and Normalization of Binary Sparse Distributed Representations by Context-Dependent ThinningDistributed representations were often criticized as inappropriate for encoding of data with a complex structure. However Plate's Holographic Reduced Representations and Kanerva's Binary Spatter Codes are recent schemes that allow on-the-fly encoding of nested compositional structures by real-valued or dense binary vectors of fixed dimensionality. In this paper we consider procedures of the Context-Dependent Thinning which were developed for representation of complex hierarchical items in the architecture of Associative-Projective Neural Networks. These procedures provide binding of items represented by sparse binary codevectors (with low probability of 1s). Such an encoding is biologically plausible and allows to reach high information capacity of distributed associative memory where the codevectors may be stored. In distinction to known binding procedures, Context-Dependent Thinning allows to support the same low density (or sparseness) of the bound codevector for varied number of constituent codevectors. Besides, a bound codevector is not only similar to another one with similar constituent codevectors (as in other schemes), but it is also similar to the constituent codevectors themselves. This allows to estimate a structure similarity just by the overlap of codevectors, without the retrieval of the constituent codevectors. This also allows an easy retrieval of the constituent codevectors. Examples of algorithmic and neural network implementations of the thinning procedures are considered. We also present representation examples of various types of nested structured data (propositions using role-filler and predicate-arguments representation, trees, directed acyclic graphs) using sparse codevectors of fixed dimension. Such representations may provide a fruitful alternative to the symbolic representations of traditional AI, as well as to the localist and microfeature-based connectionist representations.Dmitri A. RachkovskijErnst M. Kussul1999-08-20Z2011-03-11T08:53:44Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/219This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2191999-08-20ZBook Review--Ronald Cole (editor-in-chief), Joseph Mariani, Hans Uszkoreit, Annie Zaenen, and Victor Zue, eds., Survey of the State of the Art in Human Language TechnologyThis is a review of Survey of the State of the Art in Human Language Technology, edited by Ronald Cole (editor-in-chief), Joseph Mariani, Hans Uszkoreit, Annie Zaenen, and Victor Zue, published by Cambridge University Press in 1997.Varol Akman1999-08-24Z2011-03-11T08:53:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/389This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3891999-08-24ZBreakwater: The New Wave, Supervenience and IndividualismNew-wave psychoneural reduction, a la Bickle and Churchland, conflicts with the way certain adaptation properties are individuated according to evolutionary biology. Such properties cannot be reduced to physical properties of the token items that have the adaptation properties. The New Wave may entail a form of individualism inconsistent with evolutionary biology. All of this causes serious trouble as well for Jaegwon Kim's thesis of the Causal Individuation of Kinds, his Weak Supervenience thesis, Alexander's Dictum, his synchronicity thesis that all psychological kinds supervene on the contemporaneous physical states of the organism, Correlation Thesis, and indeed his Restricted Correlation Thesis. All these theses are strongly individualist, in the sense of entailing that ALL a thing's properties are determined by its own physical properties and relations, contrary to many properties in biology and psychology.John F. Post2000-11-12Z2011-03-11T08:54:26Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1097This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/10972000-11-12ZCan One Really Reason about Laws?Precedent decides legal cases, but few precedents make the case at bar <I>res judicata</I>. Instead, analogical reasoning is used, together with canons of statutory interpretation and theories of constitutional jurisprudence.
The work under review provides a model and algorithm for analogical reasoning in the legal context.
Technically, the paper represents very fine work, except that in order to find the ground of a rule, some human input is required. The rule is denied and consequences of the negation are automatically derived; then, those which a person has previously marked as undesirable are candidates for the rule's ground. So this is a man-machine system, something not emphasized by the authors. Still, it is very fine work.
Aside from its technical excellence and, on the other hand, an annoying number of missing articles, misplaced modifiers, and failures of agreement, the authors imply a certain understanding of law and how laws are made. The paper uses an ordinance rather than cases for analogical reasoning, after all, a practice that makes little sense unless the legislature is always perfectly consistent. Hence, the whole epistemological basis for the paper may be flawed.Joseph S. Fulda2001-08-30Z2011-03-11T08:54:47Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1779This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17792001-08-30ZCapturing Social Embeddedness: a constructivist approachA constructivist approach is applied to characterising social embeddedness and to the design of a simulation of social agents which displays the social embedding of agents. Social embeddedness is defined as the extent to which modelling the behaviour of an agent requires the inclusion of the society of agents as a whole. Possible effects of social embedding and ways to check for it are discussed briefly. A model of co-developing agents is exhibited, which is an extension of Brian Arthur's `El Farol Bar' model, but extended to include learning based upon a GP algorithm and the introduction of communication. Some indicators of social embedding are analysed and some possible causes of social embedding are discussed.Bruce Edmonds1999-06-28Z2011-03-11T08:54:02Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/545This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5451999-06-28ZChallenging the Computational Metaphor: Implications for How We ThinkThis paper explores the role of the traditional computational metaphor in our thinking as computer scientists, its influence on epistemological styles, and its implications for our understanding of cognition. It proposes to replace the conventional metaphor--a sequence of steps--with the notion of a community of interacting entities, and examines the ramifications of such a shift on these various ways in which we think.Lynn Andrea Stein2010-04-01T11:37:03Z2011-03-11T08:57:35Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/6811This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/68112010-04-01T11:37:03ZCommunicative competence and the architecture of the mind/brainCognitive pragmatics is concerned with the mental processes involved in intentional communication. I discuss a few issues that may help clarify the relationship between this area and the broader cognitive science and the contribution that they give, or might give, to each other. Rather than dwelling on the many technicalities of the various theories of communication that have been advanced, I focus on the different conceptions of the nature and the architecture of the mind/brain that underlie them. My aims are, first, to introduce and defend mentalist views of communication in general; second, to defend one such view, namely that communication is a cognitive competence, that is, a faculty, and the underlying idea that the architecture of the mind/brain is domain-specific; and, third, to review the (scarce) neuropsychological evidence that bears on these issues.Maurizio Tirassamaurizio.tirassa@unito.it2004-01-13Z2011-03-11T08:55:27Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3379This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/33792004-01-13ZThe Completeness of PhysicsThe present work is focussed on the completeness of physics, or what is here called the Completeness Thesis: the claim that the domain of the physical is causally closed. Two major questions are tackled: How best is the Completeness Thesis to be formulated? What can be said in defence of the Completeness Thesis? My principal conclusions are that the Completeness Thesis can be coherently formulated, and that the evidence in favour if it significantly outweighs that against it.
In opposition to those who argue that formulation is impossible because no account of what is to count as physical can be provided, I argue that as long as the purpose of the argument in which the account is to be used are borne in mind there are no significant difficulties. The account of the physical which I develop holds as physical whatever is needed to fix the likelihood of pre-theoretically given physical effects, and hypothesises in addition that no chemical, biological or psychological factors will be needed in this way. The thus formulated Completeness Thesis is coherent, and has significant empirical content.
In opposition to those who defend the doctrine of emergentism by means of philosophical arguments I contend that those arguments are flawed, setting up misleading dichotomies between needlessly attenuated alternatives and assuming the truth of what is to be proved. Against those who defend emergentism by appeal to the evidence, I argue that the history of science since the nineteenth century shows clearly that the empirical credentials of the view that the world is causally closed at the level of a small number of purely physical forces and types of energy is stronger than ever, and the credentials of emergentism correspondingly weaker.
In opposition to those who argue that difficulties with reductionism point to the implausibility of the Completeness Thesis I argue that completeness in no way entails the kinds of reductionism which give rise to the difficulties in question. I argue further that the truth of the Completeness Thesis is in fact compatible with a great deal of taxonomic disorder and the impossibility of any general reduction of non-fundamental descriptions to fundamental ones.
In opposition to those who argue that the epistemological credentials of fundamental physical laws are poor, and that those laws should in fact be seen as false, I contend that truth preserving accounts of fundamental laws can be developed. Developing such an account, I test it by considering cases of the composition of forces and causes, where what takes place is different to what is predicted by reference to any single law, and argue that viewing laws as tendencies allows their truth to be preserved, and sense to be made of both the experimental discovery of laws, and the fact that composition enables accurate prediction in at least some cases.
David Spurrett2000-03-23Z2011-03-11T08:53:53Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/404This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/4042000-03-23ZCONCEPTUAL TOOLS FOR A NATURAL SCIENCE OF SOCIETY AND CULTUREThis is the text of the Radcliffe-Brown Lecture in Social Anthopology 1999 (To appear in the Proceedings of the British Academy). In it, I argue that to approach society and culture in a naturalistic way, the domain of the social sciences must be reconceptualised by recognising only entities and processes of which we have a naturalistic understanding. These are mental representations and public productions, the processes that causally link them, the causal chains that bond these links, and the complex webs of such causal chains that criss-cross human populations over time and space. Such causal chains may distribute and stabilise representations and productions throughout a human population, thereby generating culture. The lecture introduces several conceptual tools useful for such a naturalistic approach, and illustrates their use with the case study of ritual activity in a Southern Ethiopian household.Dan Sperber2001-03-29Z2011-03-11T08:54:36Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1412This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/14122001-03-29ZA Connectionist Theory of Phenomenal ExperienceWhen cognitive scientists apply computational theory to the problem of phenomenal consciousness, as
many of them have been doing recently, there are two fundamentally distinct approaches available. Either
consciousness is to be explained in terms of the nature of the representational vehicles the brain deploys; or
it is to be explained in terms of the computational processes defined over these vehicles. We call versions of
these two approaches vehicle and process theories of consciousness, respectively. However, while there may
be space for vehicle theories of consciousness in cognitive science, they are relatively rare. This is because
of the influence exerted, on the one hand, by a large body of research which purports to show that the
explicit representation of information in the brain and conscious experience are dissociable, and on the
other, by the classical computational theory of mind – the theory that takes human cognition to be a species
of symbol manipulation. But two recent developments in cognitive science combine to suggest that a
reappraisal of this situation is in order. First, a number of theorists have recently been highly critical of the
experimental methodologies employed in the dissociation studies – so critical, in fact, it’s no longer
reasonable to assume that the dissociability of conscious experience and explicit representation has been
adequately demonstrated. Second, classicism, as a theory of human cognition, is no longer as dominant in
cognitive science as it once was. It now has a lively competitor in the form of connectionism; and
connectionism, unlike classicism, does have the computational resources to support a robust vehicle theory
of consciousness. In this paper we develop and defend this connectionist vehicle theory of consciousness. It
takes the form of the following simple empirical hypothesis: phenomenal experience consists in the explicit
representation of information in neurally realized PDP networks. This hypothesis leads us to re-assess some
common wisdom about consciousness, but, we will argue, in fruitful and ultimately plausible ways.
Gerard O'BrienJon Opie2000-01-28Z2011-03-11T08:53:53Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/397This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3972000-01-28ZThe Constructability of Artificial Intelligence (as defined by the Turing Test)The Turing Test, as originally specified, centres on the ability to perform a social role. The TT can seen as a test of an ability to enter into normal human social dynamics. In this light it seems unlikely that such an entity can be wholly designed in an `off-line' mode, but rather a considerable period of training in situ would be required. The argument that since we can pass the TT and our cognitive processes might be implemented as a TM that, in theory, an TM that could pass the TT could be built is attacked on the grounds that not all TMs are constructable in a planned way. This observation points towards the importance of developmental processes that include random elements (e.g. evolution), but in these cases it becomes problematic to call the result artificial.B. Edmonds2004-05-06Z2011-03-11T08:55:33Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3614This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/36142004-05-06ZContextes de production et justification écrite d'un point de vue par des enfants âgés de 10 à 13 ansThis study investigates both qualitative and quantitative production of sentences produced by 113 writers between 10 to 13 year of age for justifying points of views. Eight different production contexts were constructed from the modalities of three factors (familiarity with the topic, acceptance of the to be defended thesis and consensual opinion), such as they appear for example in sentences like "eating candies is good because..." or "going on a trip is not good, because...". The results clearly showed than from ten years of age children were able to justify whichever point of view and its opposite by referring to specific information which are largely shared. However, the number and the nature of the arguments varied as a function of contexts. Children write more arguments when they have to defend a view which conform a consensual opinion, whereas they diversify their arguments by supporting points of views which do not conform a consensual perspective.
The lack of practice with the activity constitutes in both cases a favorable condition. Within the framework of developing aids for school training and argumentative writing, our findings show that it is possible to use with non expert writers either context which favor quantitative production or contexts which bring to a qualitative diversification of arguments.
JY RousseyA PiolatA Gombert1999-04-21Z2011-03-11T08:53:44Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/218This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2181999-04-21ZCorrelates of linguistic rhythm in the speech signalSpoken languages have been classified by linguists according to their rhythmic properties, and psycholinguists have relied on this classification to account for infants capacity to discriminate languages. Although researchers have measured many speech signal properties, they have failed to identify reliable acoustic characteristics for language classes. This paper presents instrumental measurements based on a consonant/vowel segmentation for eight languages. The measurements suggest that intuitive rhythm types reflect specific phonological properties, which in turn are signaled by the acoustic/phonetic properties of speech. The data support the notion of rhythm classes and also allow the simulation of infant language discrimination, consistent with the hypothesis that newborns rely on a coarse segmentation of speech. A hypothesis is proposed regarding the role of rhythm perception in language acquisition.Franck RamusMarina NesporJacques Mehler2000-07-17Z2011-03-11T08:54:21Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/869This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8692000-07-17ZCorrelates of linguistic rhythm in the speech signalSpoken languages have been classified by linguists according to their rhythmic properties, and psycholinguists have relied on this classification to account for infants capacity to discriminate languages. Although researchers have measured many speech signal properties, they have failed to identify reliable acoustic characteristics for language classes. This paper presents instrumental measurements based on a consonant/vowel segmentation for eight languages. The measurements suggest that intuitive rhythm types reflect specific phonological properties, which in turn are signaled by the acoustic/phonetic properties of speech. The data support the notion of rhythm classes and also allow the simulation of infant language discrimination, consistent with the hypothesis that newborns rely on a coarse segmentation of speech. A hypothesis is proposed regarding the role of rhythm perception in language acquisition.Franck RamusMarina NesporJacques Mehler1999-08-23Z2011-03-11T08:53:40Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/115This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1151999-08-23ZCorrelations and the encoding of information in the nervous systemIs the information transmitted by an ensemble of neurons determined solely by the number of spikes fired by each cell, or do correlations in the emission of action potentials also play a significant role? We derive a simple formula which enables this question to be answered rigorously for short timescales. The formula quantifies the corrections to the instantaneous information rate which result from correlations in spike emission between pairs of neurons. The mutual information that the ensemble of neurons conveys about external stimuli can thus be broken down into firing rate and correlation components. This analysis provides fundamental constraints upon the nature of information coding - showing that over short timescales, correlations cannot dominate information representation, that stimulus-independent correlations may lead to synergy (where the neurons together convey more information than they would considered independently), but that only certain combinations of the different sources of correlation result in significant synergy rather than in redundancy or in negligible effects. This analysis leads to a new quantification procedure which is directly applicable to simultaneous multiple neuron recordings.S. PanzeriS. R. SchultzA. TrevesE. T. Rolls1999-04-08Z2011-03-11T08:54:02Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/534This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5341999-04-08ZThe Cost of Rational AgencyThe rational agency assumption limits systems to domains of application that have never been observed. Moreover, representing agents as being rational in the sense of maximising utility subject to some well specified constraints renders software systems virtually unscalable. These properties of the rational agency assumption are shown to be unnecessary in representations or analogies of markets. The demonstration starts with an analysis of how the rational agency assumption limits the applicability and scalability of the IBM information filetering economy. An unrestricted specification of the information filtering economy is developed from an analysis of the properties of markets as systems and the implementation of a model based on intelligent agents. This extended information filtering economy modelis used to test the analytical results on the scope for agents to act as intermediaries between human users and information sources.Scott Moss2000-03-01Z2011-03-11T08:54:04Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/555This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5552000-03-01ZA database and lexicon of scripts for ThoughtTreasureSince scripts were proposed in the 1970's as an inferencing mechanism for AI and natural language processing programs, there have been few attempts to build a database of scripts. This paper describes a database and lexicon of scripts that has been added to the ThoughtTreasure commonsense platform. The database provides the following information about scripts: sequence of events, roles, props, entry conditions, results, goals, emotions, places, duration, frequency, and cost. English and French words and phrases are linked to script concepts.Erik T. Mueller2001-03-25Z2011-03-11T08:54:27Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1139This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/11392001-03-25ZA Defence of Cartesian MaterialismOne of the principal tasks Dennett sets himself in "Consciousness Explained" is to demolish the Cartesian theatre model of phenomenal consciousness, which in its contemporary garb takes the form of Cartesian materialism: the idea that conscious experience is a process of presentation realized in the physical materials of the brain. The now standard response to Dennett is that, in focusing on Cartesian materialism, he attacks an impossibly naive account of consciousness held by no one currently working in cognitive science or the philosophy of mind. Our response is quite different. We believe that, once properly formulated, Cartesian materialism is no straw man. Rather, it is an attractive hypothesis about the relationship between the computational architecture of the brain and phenomenal consciousness, and hence one that is worthy of further exploration. Consequently, our primary aim in this paper is to defend Cartesian materialism from Dennett's assault. We do this by showing that Dennett's argument against this position is founded on an implicit assumption (about the relationship between phenomenal experience and information coding in the brain), which while valid in the context of classical cognitive science, is not forced on connectionism.Gerard O'BrienJon Opie2003-12-04Z2011-03-11T08:55:24Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3297This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/32972003-12-04ZDesign Guidelines for Landmarks to Support Navigation in Virtual EnvironmentsUnfamiliar, large-scale virtual environments are difficult to navigate. This paper presents design guidelines to ease navigation in such virtual environments. The guidelines presented here focus on the design and placement of landmarks in virtual environments. Moreover, the guidelines are based primarily on the extensive empirical literature on navigation in the real world. A rationale for this approach is provided by the similarities between navigational behavior in real and virtual environments.Norman G. Vinson1999-09-06Z2011-03-11T08:54:20Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/832This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8321999-09-06ZDesigning an interface to optimize reading with small display windowsThe extent of electronic presentation of text in small display windows is mushrooming. In the present paper, 4 ways of presenting text in a small display window were examined and compared with a normal page condition: rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), RSVP with a completion meter, sentence-by-sentence presentation, and sentence-by-sentence presentation with a completion meter. Dependent measures were reading efficiency (speed and comprehension) and preference. For designers of hardware or software with small display windows, the results suggest the following: (a) Though RSVP is disliked by readers, the present methods of allowing self-pacing and regressions in RSVP are efficient and feasible, unlike earlier tested methods; (b) slower reading in RSVP should be achieved by increasing pauses between sentences or by repeating sentences, not by decreasing the presentation rate within a sentence; (c) completion meters do not interfere with performance and are usually preferred; (d) the space-saving sentence-by-sentence format is as efficient and as preferred as the normal page format.Tarjin RahmanPaul Muter1999-08-31Z2011-03-11T08:53:41Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/117This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1171999-08-31ZDifferences in the ability to process a visuo-spatial task are reflected in event-related slow cortical potentials of human subjects.Recent Positron Emission (PET) and EEG studies suggest that higher ability in a cognitive task is associated with a more efficient neuronal processing of this task. However, the validity and generalizability of these studies is limited for several reasons. We investigated 20 male and 18 female human subjects with good vs. poor spatial ability performing a visuo-spatial task (cube test). Processing-related slow event-related potentials were recorded via 22 electrodes, evenly distributed over the scalp. Significant differences between good and poor performers were found in both sexes: Poor subjects showed higher activity in the parietal region, and their topography was more extended into fronto-central regions. Since the amount and topography of brain activity may vary considerably depending on subjects' ability, we conclude that careful (experimental) control of task-specific ability of subjects is mandatory for cognitive neuroscience studies.Claus LammHerbert BauerOliver VitouchReinhard Gstättner2000-05-13Z2011-03-11T08:53:42Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/145This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1452000-05-13ZDiscourse studies in neurologically impaired populations: A quest for actionOrganism and environment are in a state of constant interaction, and discourse is vie-wed as one form of manifestation of this interaction. Through the study of discourse in-sights can be gained into those components that bring about mental events. Verbal structure, communication of beliefs and action/interaction are highly interactive dimensi-ons of discourse. Taking this perspective as a framework, the findings of discourse stu-dies with particular emphasis on right-hemisphere brain damaged individuals are discussed. Neurolinguistic studies of discourse can be divided into four categories: (1) studies that focus primarily at providing a detailed description of the structural and inter-actional abilities of brain-damaged individuals, (2) studies that are mainly concerned with investigating the processing aspects of discourse, (3) studies that investigate the influ-ence of cognitive systems such as attention or memory on discourse processing, and (4) studies that try to relate discourse processing mechanisms to underlying biological sub-strates or neurophysiological mechanisms. A quest is made for future research to base discourse studies on well-defined processing theories, to include different processing components and levels, and to systematically investigate the impact of facets of cogniti-ve systems on such processing. Established methodological approaches should be complemented by electrophysiological procedures (such as the event related potentials technique), or functional imaging techniques (such as fMRI) to tackle relationships bet-ween discourse processing mechanisms, cognitive systems and underlying biological mechanisms. Consideration of the influence of biochemical processes (such as asym-metries of neurotransmitters, endocrine functions or influence of pharmacological agents) on component processes may add to our insights.Brigitte Stemmer2000-07-25Z2011-03-11T08:54:21Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/897This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8972000-07-25ZThe Disunity of ColorWhat is color? What is color vision? Most philosophers answer by reference to humans: to human color qualia, or to the environmental properties or "quality spaces" perceived by humans. It is argued, with reference to empirical findings concerning comparative color vision and the evolution of color vision, that all such attempts are mistaken. An adequate definition of color vision must eschew reference to its outputs in the human cognition and refer only to inputs: color vision consists in the use of wavelength discrimination in the construction of visual representations. A color quality is one that is generated from such processing.Mohan Matthen2002-04-11Z2011-03-11T08:54:55Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2172This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/21722002-04-11ZThe Doomsday Argument and Hempel's ProblemEnglish translation of a paper originally pupblished in French in the Canadian Journal of Philosophy under the title 'Comment l'urne de Carter et Leslie se déverse dans celle de Hempel'. In this paper, I present firstly a solution to Hempel's Problem. I recall secondly the solution to the Doomsday Argument described in my previous Une Solution pour l'Argument de l'Apocalypse (Canadian Journal of Philosophy 1998-2) and remark that both solutions are based on a similar line of reasoning. I show thirdly that the Doomsday Argument can be reduced to the core of Hempel's Problem.Paul Franceschi1999-04-09Z2011-03-11T08:54:02Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/535This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5351999-04-09ZDRAMA, a connectionist architecture for control and learning in autonomous robotsThis work proposes a connectionist architecture, DRAMA, for dynamic control and learning of autonomous robots. DRAMA stands for dynamical recurrent associative memory architecture. It is a time-delay recurrent neural network, using Hebbian update rules. It allows learning of spatio-temporal regularities and time series in discrete sequences of inputs, in the face of an important amount of noise. The first part of this paper gives the mathematical description of the architecture and analyses theoretically and through numerical simulations its performance. The second part of this paper reports on the implementation of DRAMA in simulated and physical robotic experiments. Training and rehearsal of the DRAMA architecture is computationally fast and inexpensive, which makes the model particularly suitable for controlling `computationally-challenged' robots. In the experiments, we use a basic hardware system with very limited computational capability and show that our robot can carry out real time computation and on-line learning of relatively complex cognitive tasks. In these experiments, two autonomous robots wander randomly in a fixed environment, collecting information about its elements. By mutually associating information of their sensors and actuators, they learn about physical regularities underlying their experience of varying stimuli. The agents learn also from their mutual interactions. We use a teacher-learner scenario, based on mutual following of the two agents, to enable transmission of a vocabulary from one robot to the other.Aude BillardGillian Hayes2002-04-16Z2011-03-11T08:54:55Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2183This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/21832002-04-16ZDschang syllable structureThe syllable structure of Dschang is interesting for a variety of reasons. Most notable is
the aspiration which can appear on most consonant types, including voiced stops. I shall
argue that aspiration is best viewed as moraic, contributing to the weight of a syllable. An
understanding of the syllable structure also gives valuable insights into the phonemic
inventory and the distributional asymmetries, and helps to explain some curious
morphophonemic vowel alternations in the imperative construction.
Steven Bird1999-10-06Z2011-03-11T08:54:02Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/547This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5471999-10-06ZDynamical recurrent neural networks towards prediction and modeling of dynamical systemsThis paper addresses the use of Dynamical Recurrent Neural Networks (DRNN) for time series prediction and modeling of small dynamical systems. Since the recurrent synapses are represented by Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filters, DRNN are state-based connectionist models in which all hidden units act as state variables of a dynamical system. The model is trained with Temporal Recurrent Backprop (TRBP), an efficient backward recurrent training procedure with minimal computational burden which benefits from the exponential decay of gradient reversely in time. The gradient decay is first illustrated on intensive experiments on the standard sunspot series. The ability of the model to internally encode useful information on the underlying process is then illustrated by several experiments on well known chaotic processes. Parsimonious DRNN models are able to find an appropriate internal representation of various chaotic processes from the observation of a subset of the state variables.A. Aussem2001-02-22Z2011-03-11T08:54:32Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1311This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/13112001-02-22ZEffect of partial pancreatectomy on diabetic status in BALB/c mice.Pancreatic regeneration after pancreatectomy has been well documented in animal models. However, the phenomenon of pancreatic regeneration in diabetes has not been exploited as yet. We report here the restoration of euglycaemic status in streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic BALB/c mice, after 50% pancreatectomy. We observed that, after pancreatectomy, STZ-diabetic mice showed a rapid improvement in glycaemic status, starting from the 8th postoperative day, and remained normoglycaemic throughout a 90-day follow-up study. STZ-induced diabetic and control non-diabetic BALB/c mice underwent pancreatectomy and were monitored regularly for changes in body weight, plasma glucose and serum insulin concentrations and histological status of the pancreas. All the pancreatectomised animals showed euglycaemic status from about 20 days after operation, whereas a majority (around 70%) of the diabetic, sham-operated animals died of sustained hyperglycaemia by 20-30 days after operation. Examination of the regenerating pancreas indicated nesidioblastotic activity and supported the theory of a ductal origin of islet stem cells. Islets isolated from the regenerating pancreas showed a progressive increase in islet area (1227.9+/-173.2 micrometer(2) on day 5 compared with 2473.8+/-242.0 micrometer(2) by day 20). The increment in insulin concentrations and subsequent decrement in glycaemia of the diabetic pancreatectomised animals indicate islet neogenesis occurring after the operative insult, leading to a normoglycaemic status, probably recapitulating ontogeny. We have shown that induction of a regenerative stimulus (pancreatectomy) in conditions of STZ-induced diabetes may trigger pancreatic regenerative processes, thereby restoring a functional pancreas, in STZ-diabetic mice.
AA HardikarMS KarandikarRR Bhonde2000-02-01Z2011-03-11T08:53:41Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/134This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1342000-02-01ZEFFECTS OF ASPIRATION VERSUS NEUROTOXIC LESIONS OF THE AMYGDALA ON EMOTIONAL RESPONSES IN MONKEYSAll previous reports describing alterations in emotional reactivity after amygdala damage in monkeys were based on aspiration or radiofrequency lesions which likely disrupted fibers of passage coursing to and from adjacent ventral and medial temporal cortical areas. To determine whether this associated indirect damage was responsible for some or all of the changes described earlier, we compared the changes induced by aspiration of the amygdala to those induced by fiber-sparing neurotoxic lesions. Four different stimuli, two with and two without a social component, were used to evaluate the expression of Defense, Aggression, Submission, and Approach responses. In unoperated controls, Defense and Approach behaviors were elicited by all four stimuli, "social" and inanimate alike, whereas Aggression and Submission responses occurred only in the presence of the two "social" stimuli. Furthermore, all Defense reactions were reduced with an attractive inanimate item, while Freezing was selectively increased with an aversive one. Relative to controls, monkeys with neurotoxic amygdala lesions showed the same array of behavioral changes as those with aspiration lesions, namely reduced fear and aggression, increased submission, and excessive manual and oral exploration. Even partial neurotoxic lesions involving less than two-thirds of the amygdala significantly altered fear and manual exploration. These findings convincingly demonstrate that the amygdala is crucial for the normal regulation of emotions in monkeys. Nevertheless, since some of the symptoms observed after neurotoxic lesions were less marked than those seen after aspiration lesions, the emotional disorders described earlier after amygdalectomy in monkeys were likely exacerbated by the attendant fiber damage.Martine MeunierJocelyne BachevalierElisabeth A. MurrayLudie MálkováMortimer Mishkin2000-08-28Z2011-03-11T08:54:21Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/898This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8982000-08-28ZElaboration of the New Paradigm of Interdisciplinary InvestigationsIn the article, the problem of creating a theoretical system for approaching the complex phenomena of Reality is discussed. The idea is expressed that epistemology, as the theory of cognitive process, has a dissociative character. The postulate of an integrated informational system is formulated. Such postulate is a suggested basis for creation of a unified methodology of cognition (investigation) which makes it possible to elaborate a new paradigm of interdisciplinary investigations as a separate scientific discipline which has its own methods and special objects. The article will be of interest to methodologists of science.Serge Patlavskiy2004-07-06Z2011-03-11T08:55:31Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3571This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/35712004-07-06ZElaboration of the New Paradigm of Interdisciplinary InvestigationsIn the article, the problem of construction a meta-theory for approaching the complex phenomena of Reality is discussed. The integrated information system is formulated. Such postulate is a suggested basis for creation of a unified methodology of cognition (investigation) which makes it possible to elaborate a new paradigm of interdisciplinary investigations as a separate scientific discipline which has its own methods and special objects. The article will be of interest to philosophers and methodologists of science
Serge Patlavskiy2005-12-05Z2011-03-11T08:56:14Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/4633This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/46332005-12-05ZElaboration of the New Paradigm of Interdisciplinary InvestigationsIn the article, the problem of construction a meta-theory for approaching the complex phenomena of Reality is discussed. The integrated information system is formulated. Such postulate is a suggested basis for creation of a unified methodology of cognition (investigation) which makes it possible to elaborate a new paradigm of interdisciplinary investigations as a separate scientific discipline which has its own methods and special objects. The article will be of interest to philosophers and methodologists of science
Serge Patlavskiy2001-07-18Z2011-03-11T08:54:45Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1696This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16962001-07-18Z Electronic Journal Forum: Resetting Our Intuition Pumps for the Online-Only Era: A Conversation With Stevan Harnad.Stevan Harnad, Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of Southampton, has been--and continues to be--a visionary regarding digital publication of scholarly journals. In a wide-ranging discussion, we explored how his ideas about an electronic-only model of scholarly publication have evolved in the half-decade since he first elaborated them, including such topics as costs, archiving, preservation, and the role of commercial publishers. Near the end of the exchange, Harnad refers to the need for "demonstrations, evangelism, polemics and subversion" to drive forward the changes he sees as "the optimal and the inevitable for scholars and scholarship;" here, he provides some of all four of these. Since Harnad is the best articulator of his own vision, I will provide his responses as they appeared in the interview, rather than digest them.Ellen DuranceauStevan Harnad2007-10-15T11:33:35Z2011-03-11T08:56:58Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5752This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/57522007-10-15T11:33:35ZAn Empirical Test of a Postulate of a Mediating
Process between Mind ProcessesThe objective of the research was to verify a
postulate of a theory of mind processes. The
postulate stated that the mediating process of the
mind processes comprises of diffusion, absorption,
and assimilation through bursts of information. The
data were obtained from videotaped sessions. The
number of subjects was 78. Reliability of
observation was assessed with the help of the
coefficients of determination and alienation in
comparison with the randomized variables. The proper
analysis device was conditional probability.
Patterns occurred that enabled to indicate that
diffusion, absorption, and assimilation are real
processes between other mind processes; such as the
initial form, the mental shape, the mindy, and the
configuration. Thus the postulate has a high
probability of verification that makes it needless to
patch the wholes of the preliminary theory,
logically. The next phase is to find out the
associations of the entire preliminary construction
or the 8 processes with adult data.
Ed.D Raimo Juhani Laasonenpostmaster@rjl.pp.fi2000-12-19Z2011-03-11T08:54:27Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1147This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/11472000-12-19ZAn Evolutionary Hypothesis for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Psychological Immune System?A new hypothesis is presented within the framework of evolutionary psychology that attempts to explain the origins of obsessive-compulsive disorder. It is suggested that obsessions and compulsions originate from the overactivity of a mental module that the majority of humans possess and has the function of generating risk scenarios without voluntary intervention. It is hypothesised that obsessional phenomena function as an off-line risk avoidance process, designed to lead to risk avoidance behaviour at a future time, thus distinguishing it from anxiety and related phenomena as on-line emotional states, designed to lead to the avoidance of immediate and direct risks. Finally, the hypothesis makes a number of specific predictions that are testable and refutable. It is contended that the present hypothesis if supported by empirical evidence could serve as a basis for future research on this important disorder.Riadh T AbedKarel W de Pauw1999-02-19Z2011-03-11T08:54:17Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/798This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/7981999-02-19ZExplicit learning in ACT-RA popular distinction in the learning literature is the distinction between implicit and explicit learning. Although many studies elaborate on the nature of implicit learning, little attention is left for explicit learning. The unintentional aspect of implicit learning corresponds well to the mechanistic view of learning employed in architectures of cognition. But how to account for deliberate, intentional, explicit learning? This chapter argues that explicit learning can be explained by strategies that exploit implicit learning mechanisms. This idea is explored and modelled using the ACT-R theory (Anderson, 1993). An explicit strategy for learning facts in ACT-Rs declarative memory is rehearsal, a strategy that uses ACT-Rs activation learning mechanisms to gain deliberate control over what is learned. In the same sense, strategies for explicit procedural learning are proposed. Procedural learning in ACT-R involves generalisation of examples. Explicit learning rules can create and manipulate these examples. An example of these explicit rules will be discussed. These rules are general enough to be able to model the learning of three different tasks. Furthermore, the last of these models can explain the difference between adults and children in the discrimination-shift task.Niels A. Taatgen2012-04-25T12:59:41Z2012-04-25T12:59:41Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8180This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/81802012-04-25T12:59:41ZFamilial cases of missing mandibular incisor: three case presentationsHypodontia is the congenital absence of one or more teeth because of agenesis. The most commonly missing teeth are the third molars, the maxillary lateral incisors and the second premolars. Cases are presented of three patients with a missing mandibular incisor.Dr. W.C. Ngeowngeowy@um.edu.my1999-04-28Z2011-03-11T08:54:02Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/536This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5361999-04-28ZField Computation in Natural and Artificial IntelligenceWe review the concepts of field computation, a model of computation that processes information represented as spatially continuous arrangements of continuous data. We show that many processes in the brain are described usefully as field computation. Throughout we stress the connections between field computation and quantum mechanics, especially including the important role of information fields, which represent by virtue of their form rather than their magnitude. We also show that field computation permits simultaneous nonlinear computation in linear superposition.Bruce J. MacLennan1999-07-16Z2011-03-11T08:53:43Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/183This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1831999-07-16ZThe Fifth InfluenceThis article is a theoretical consideration on the role of sensory pleasure and mental joy as optimizers of behavior. It ends with an axiomatic proposal. When they compare the human body to its environment, Philosophers recognise the cosmos as the Large Infinite, and the atomic particles as the Small Infinite. The human brain reaches such a degree of complexity that it may be considered as a third infinite in the universe, a Complex Infinite. It follows that any force capable of moving such an infinite deserves a place among the forces of the universe. Physicists have recognized four forces, the gravitational, the electromagnetic, the weak, and the strong nuclear force. Forces are defined in four dimentions (reversible or not in time) and it is postulated that these forces are valid and applicable everywhere. Pleasure and displeasure, the affective axis of consciousness, can move the infinitely complex into action and no human brain can avoid the trend to maximize its pleasure. Therefore, we suggest, axiomatically, that the affective capability of consciousness operates in a way similar to the four forces of the Physics, i.e. influences the behavior of conscious agents in a way similar to the way the four forces influence masses and particles. However, since a mental phenomenon is dimensioneless we propose to call the affective capability of consciousness the fifth influence rather than the fifth force.Michel CabanacRemi A. CabanacHarold T. Hammel2001-07-18Z2011-03-11T08:54:44Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1685This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16852001-07-18ZFree at Last: The Future of Peer-Reviewed JournalsI don't think there is any doubt in anyone's mind as to what the optimal and inevitable outcome of all
this will be: The Give-Away literature will be free at last online, in one global, interlinked virtual
library (see <http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/citation.html>), and its QC/C expenses will be
paid for up-front, out of the S/L/P savings. The only question is: When? This piece is written in the
hope of wiping the potential smirk off Posterity's face by persuading the academic cavalry, now that
they have been led to the waters of self-archiving, that they should just go ahead and drink!
Stevan Harnad1999-06-28Z2011-03-11T08:54:18Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/814This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8141999-06-28ZFrom moods to modules: preliminary remarks for an evolutionary theory of mood phenomenaIn the past few decades, research in the psychology of emotion has benefited greatly from being located in a firm evolutionary framework. It is argued that research in the psychology of mood might attain equal rigour by taking a similar approach. An evolutionary framework for mood research would be based on evolutionary psychology, the main thesis of which is the Massive Modularity Hypothesis. Translating the folk-psychological language of moods into the scientific language of modules might clarify many theoretical questions and provide a sound basis for empirical research. It is argued that such an evolutionary approach would reveal mood to be a much more heterogeneous category than emotion. While the six basic emotions identified by Paul Ekman are probably each subserved by a single module, prototypical moods such as elation, depression, anxiety and irritability are likely to be subserved by a wide range of modules. An evolutionary approach to mood might therefore lead to the elimination of the concept of mood from scientific psychology altogether.Dylan Evans2001-07-29Z2011-03-11T08:54:45Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1720This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17202001-07-29ZThe functions of postpartum depressionEvolutionary approaches to parental care suggest that parents will not automatically invest in all offspring, and should reduce or eliminate investment in their children if the costs outweigh the benefits. Lack of paternal or social support will increase the costs born by mothers, whereas infant health problems will reduce the evolutionary benefits to be gained. Numerous studies support the correlation between postpartum depression (PPD) and lack of social support or indicators of possible infant health and development problems. PPD may be an adaptation that informs mothers that they are suffering or have suffered a fitness cost, that motivates them to reduce or eliminate investment in offspring under certain circumstances, and that may help them negotiate greater levels of investment from others. PPD also appears to be a good model for depression in general.Edward Hagen2001-02-05Z2011-03-11T08:54:29Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1272This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/12722001-02-05ZFundamental Laws and the Completeness of PhysicsThe status of fundamental laws is an important issue when deciding between the three broad ontological options of fundamentalism (of which the thesis that physics is complete is typically a sub-type), emergentism, and disorder or promiscuous realism. Cartwrights assault on fundamental laws which argues that such laws do not, and cannot, typically state the facts, and hence cannot be used to support belief in a fundamental ontological order, is discussed in this context. A case is made in defence of a moderate form of fundamentalism, which leaves open the possibility of emergentism, but sets itself against the view that our best ontology is disordered. The argument, taking its cue from Bhaskar, relies on a consideration of the epistemic status of experiments, and the question of the possible generality of knowledge gained in unusual or controlled environments.David Jon Spurrett1999-04-22Z2011-03-11T08:54:18Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/805This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8051999-04-22ZFurther evidence on the effect of symbolic distance on Stroop-like interferencePavese and Umiltà found that, in an enumeration task, Stroop-like interference is larger when the digit identity is symbolically close to the enumeration response than when it is symbolically far. In two experiments testing 49 undergraduates, we further explored this phenomenon using Francolini and Egeth's paradigm. We found that symbolic distance affected interference even when the stimulus was briefly presented and masked. In Exp. 2, which tested numerosities outside the subitizing range, individuals used a different enumeration strategy but showed the same symbolic distance effect. These results support the hypothesis that Stroop interference found in enumeration tasks depends on a rapid and automatic activation of digits' magnitude representation.Antonella PaveseCarlo Umiltà1999-07-14Z2011-03-11T08:53:40Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/106This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1061999-07-14ZThe Future of Research on Electroreception and Electrocommunication.Besides the rounding out of presently active areas, six are selected for predictions of marked advance. (1) Most discoveries will be in cellular componentry and molecular mechanisms for one or another class of receptors or central pathways. (2) More major taxa will be found with electroreceptive species, possibly birds, reptiles or invertebrates, representing independent evolutionary "inventions". (3) Electric organs with weak and episodic electric discharges will be found in new taxa; first, among siluriforms. (4) New examples are expected, like lampreys, where synchronized muscle action potentials add up to voltages in the range of weakly electric fish. Some of these will look like intermediates in the evolution of electric organs. (5) Ethological significance will be found for a variety of known physiological features. Exs.: uranoscopids, skates and weakly electric catfish with episodic electric discharges of unknown role; electroreceptive ability of some of the diverse group having Lorenzinian-type ampullae (besides elasmobranchs) including lampreys, chimaeras, lungfish, sturgeons, paddlefish, and salamanders; gymnotiform and mormyrid detection of capacitive component of impedance. (6) The organization of some higher functions in the cerebellum and forebrain will gradually come to light.Theodore H. Bullock2001-07-18Z2011-03-11T08:54:45Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1698This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16982001-07-18ZThe Future of Scholarly SkywritingSkywriting offers a hybrid possibility, not quite like anything that came before
it: much closer to the live interactive tempo of spontaneous on-line speech
(and hence on-line thought), yet retaining all the virtues of the written medium
(formality, discipline, objectivity, publicity, corrigibility permanence).Stevan Harnad1999-10-11Z2011-03-11T08:53:43Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/184This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1841999-10-11ZThe Geometry of Stimulus ControlMany studies, both in ethology and comparative psychology, have shown that animals react to modifications of familiar stimuli. This phenomenon is often referred to as generalisation. Most modifications lead to a decrease in responding, but to certain new stimuli an increase in responding is observed. This holds for both innate and learned behaviour. Here we propose a heuristic approach to stimulus control, or stimulus selection, with the aim of explaining these phenomena. The model has two key elements. First, we choose the receptor level as the fundamental stimulus space. Each stimulus is represented as the pattern of activation it induces in sense organs. Second, in this space we introduce a simple measure of `similarity' between stimuli by calculating how activation patterns overlap. The main advantage we recognise in this approach is that the generalisation of acquired responses emerges from a few simple principles which are grounded in the recognition of how animals actually perceive stimuli. Many traditional problems that face theories of stimulus control (e.g. the Spence-Hull theory of gradient interaction or ethological theories of stimulus summation) do not arise in the present framework. These problems include the amount of generalisation along different dimensions, peak-shift phenomena (with respect to both positive and negative shifts), intensity generalisation, and generalisation after conditioning on two positive stimuliStefano GhirlandaMagnus Enquist2000-07-18Z2011-03-11T08:54:21Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/877This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8772000-07-18ZThe Geometry of Stimulus ControlMany studies, both in ethology and comparative psychology, have shown that animals react to modifications of familiar stimuli. This phenomenon is often referred to as generalisation. Most modifications lead to a decrease in responding, but to certain new stimuli an increase in responding is observed. This holds for both innate and learned behaviour. Here we propose a heuristic approach to stimulus control, or stimulus selection, with the aim of explaining these phenomena. The model has two key elements. First, we choose the receptor level as the fundamental stimulus space. Each stimulus is represented as the pattern of activation it induces in sense organs. Second, in this space we introduce a simple measure of `similarity' between stimuli by calculating how activation patterns overlap. The main advantage we recognise in this approach is that the generalisation of acquired responses emerges from a few simple principles which are grounded in the recognition of how animals actually perceive stimuli. Many traditional problems that face theories of stimulus control (e.g. the Spence-Hull theory of gradient interaction or ethological theories of stimulus summation) do not arise in the present framework. These problems include the amount of generalisation along different dimensions, peak-shift phenomena (with respect to both positive and negative shifts), intensity generalisation, and generalisation after conditioning on two positive stimuli.Stefano GhirlandaMagnus Enquist2001-08-30Z2011-03-11T08:54:47Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1775This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17752001-08-30ZGossip, Sexual Recombination and the El Farol Bar: modelling the emergence of heterogeneityBrian Arthur's `El Farol Bar' model is extended so that the agents also learn and communicate. The learning and communication is implemented using an evolutionary process acting upon a population of mental models inside each agent. The evolutionary process is based on a Genetic Programming algorithm. Each gene is composed of two tree-structures: one to control its action and one to determine its communication. A detailed case-study from the simulations show how the agents have differentiated so that by the end of the run they had taken on very different roles. Thus the introduction of a flexible learning process and an expressive internal representation has allowed the emergence of heterogeneity.Bruce Edmonds2002-01-16Z2011-03-11T08:54:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2021This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/20212002-01-16ZHeterochrony and adaptation in developing neural networksThis paper discusses the simulation results of a model of biological development for neural networks based on a regulatory genome. The models results are analyzed using the framework of Heterochrony theory (McKinney and McNamara, 1991). The network development is controlled by genes that produce elements regulating the activation, inhibition, and delay of neurogenetic events. The genome can also regulate the gene expression mechanisms. An ecological task of foraging behavior is used to test the model with an evolving population of artificial organisms. Organisms evolve an optimal foraging behavior and the ability to adapt to changing environments. The adaptive strategy consists in changes of network architecture that are determined by the regulatory rearrangment of neurogenetic events. Results show how heterochronic changes play an adaptive role in the evolution of neural networks.Angelo Cangelosi2001-09-05Z2011-03-11T08:54:47Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1790This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17902001-09-05ZHow to model consciousness in Memory Evolutive Systems?Memory Evolutive Systems (MES) represent a mathematical model, based on Category Theory, to study natural open autonomous systems such as biological, neural or social systems. It has been progressively developed by the authors in a series of papers since 1986. In this model the dynamics is modulated by the competitive interactions between a net of internal more or less complex organs of regulation, called CoRegulators (CR), with a differential access to a central hierarchical Memory. This article attempts to model the notions of Semantics and Consciousness in such a MES
A Semantics will emerge through the detection of specific invariances by the CRs that leads to classify objects according to their main attributes, and record the invariance classes. The model explains how it relies on a hierarchical 2 steps process: first a pragmatically 'acted' classification at the level of specific attributes (such as colors), then this classification is 'reflected' and analyzed at a higher level, and a new formal unit, called a 'concept', is formed to represent the invariance class (e.g., the color 'blue').
The introduction of more and more abstract concepts gives more flexibility to the comportment. It is essential for the development of some kind of 'consciousness'. A 'conscious' CR is characterized by the capacity to respond to a new event or to a fracture by an increase in awareness, which permits: (i) to extend its actual 'landscape' (formed by the information it can gather) retrospectively to past lower levels; (ii) to operate an abduction process in this extended landscape to find possible causes of the fracture; (iii) and finally to planify a strategy for several steps ahead, through the formation of internal 'virtual' landscapes in which strategies can be tried without energy costs. Thus consciousness would amount to an internalization of Semantics and Time, giving a selective advantage.
In the second Part of the paper, a MES modeling a neural system is explicitly described and it is shown how the various processes described above are in agreement with present neurophysiological knowledge.
Finally the general ideas are illustrated on a concrete example.
Andrée C. EhresmannJean-Paul Vanbremeersch1999-08-24Z2011-03-11T08:53:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/390This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3901999-08-24ZHow to Refute Principles of Sufficient ReasonOutlines a conceptual argument against the Principle of Sufficient reason. The argument is presented in detail in earlier work, and is based on deductive inferences from PSR's own concept of explanation. The argument shows that not everything can have an explanation of the sort claimed by PSR. So far from being a presupposition of reason itself, as some think, PSR can be refuted by reason, arguing only from PSR's own concept of explanation. Hence PSR cannot be used to argue that there must be some explanation or reason for existence, invisible at least to science, or that because we do not or cannot know the explanation, there must be irreducible mystery about why there is anything at all rather than nothing, including why there was a Big Bang in the first place.John F. Post2001-06-08Z2011-03-11T08:54:40Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1545This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/15452001-06-08ZThe Importance of Pragmatic Aspects in Conditional ReasoningThe importance of pragmatic aspects in conditional reasoning was assessed in the performance of 54 subjects (26 females and 28 male; mean age 17.6 years) on 48 conditional inference problems, using a 3 x 2 x 4 design, with repeated measurements. The independent variables were probability of empirical frequency in the real world,type of conditional rule and scenario availability. Number of correct responses and subjects'certainty about the correctness on their responses were the dependent variables. The results showed: a) the scenario availability is not sufficient in itself to explain differences in performance, but it does affect the subject's degree of confidence in their conclusions; b) there is an interaction between probability of empirical frequency in the real world and type of conditional rule on correct performance. The results were contrasted with the predictions made by the mental models theory and its revised version proposed by Evans (1993). These findings support the semantic theories of conditional reasoning.Mª Dolores ValiñaGloria SeoaneMª José FerracesMontserrat Martín1999-02-15Z2011-03-11T08:53:39Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/80This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/801999-02-15ZIn search of a neuronal substrate of the human mind: new concepts from "topological neurochemistry"Neurochemistry is a powerful discipline of modern neuroscience based on a description of neuronal function in terms of molecular reaction and interaction. This study aims at a neurochemical approach to the "hard" philosophical mind-body problem: the search for the neuronal correlate of consciousness. The scattered pattern of remote areas in the human brain simultaneously busy with the computation of single perceptions has left us with the unanswered questions why, where, and how the neuronal activity gives rise to a unified conscious observation of the outer world in a space inside of the human brain. In this study, conscious perception of temporally and spatially distinct events by an inner observer, the self, is treated as a topological problem demanding for a correlation of the self with a particular orchestration of neuronal or neurochemical activity triggered by action potentials. According to a novel concept of "topological neurochemistry" it is assumed that three features of the human brain are necessary in order to generate consciousness: 1) A network of neurons with dendritic branching structure and re-entry signaling of action potentials. 2)A macromolecular lattice structure as part of the neuron which is excitable or modulated by action potentials. 3) A spatial superposition of action potentials which underlies conscious perception but reveals not necessarily the same topology as the space perceived in consciousness. Several molecular models for the generation of consciousness and the self will be discussed, and a new concept, the "fractal approach", will be introduced. Mathematical theory and experimental methods for investigation of human consciousness will be presented.Erhard Bieberich2000-02-02Z2011-03-11T08:53:41Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/135This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1352000-02-02ZIncidences of asymmetries for the palmar grasp reflex in neonates and hand preference in adultsIt was hypothesized that adult handedness might be predicted from the neonatal grasp reflex. Grasp reflex was measured from right and left hand (10 trials for each hand) in neonates. According to significance for the difference between the mean grasp reflex strength from the right and left hands, the subjects were designated as right-, left-, and mixed-handers. Adult hand preference was assessed by Edinburgh Handedness Inventory. The percentage of left-handedness (8.3%) in neonates coincided with adult left-handedness (6.3-9.2%). The percentage of consistent right-hand preference in adults coincided with percentage of right-handedness in neonates (25.7%). The high percentage of neonatal mixed-handedness was similar to that to be expected from the right shift model of hand preference. It was concluded that left-handedness and consistent right- handedness may be determined prenatally, under genetic and/or hormonal control, and that a large majority of neonatal handedness, mixed-handers, might change their hand preference in favor of right-handedness under socio-cultural and developmental influences of speech centres.Uner TanMeliha Tan2002-10-09Z2011-03-11T08:55:03Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2499This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/24992002-10-09ZIncreasing Evolvability Considered as a Large-Scale Trend in EvolutionEvolvability is the capacity to evolve. This paper introduces a simple computational model of evolvability and demonstrates that, under certain conditions, evolvability can increase indefinitely, even when there is no direct selection for evolvability. The model shows that increasing evolvability implies an accelerating evolutionary pace. It is suggested that the conditions for indefinitely increasing evolvability are satisfied in biological and cultural evolution. We claim that increasing evolvability is a large-scale trend in evolution. This hypothesis leads to testable predictions about biological and cultural evolution. Peter Turney1998-06-19Z2011-03-11T08:53:49Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/332This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3321998-06-19ZInnateness Is Canalization: In Defense of a Developmental Account of InnatenessLorenz proposed in his (1935) articulation of a theory of behavioral instincts that the objective of ethology is to distinguish behaviors that are innate from behaviors that are learned (or acquired). Lorenzs motive was to open the investigation of certain adaptive behaviors to evolutionary theorizing. Accordingly, since innate behaviors are genetic, they are open to such investigation. By Lorenzs light an innate/acquired or learned dichotomy rested on a familiar Darwinian distinction between genes and environments. Ever since Lorenz, ascriptions of innateness have become widespread in the cognitive, behavioral, and biological sciences. The trend continues despite decades of strong arguments that show, in particular, the dichotomy that Lorenz invoked in his theory of behavioral instincts is literally false: no biological trait is the product of genes alone. Some critics suggest that the failure of Lorenzs account shows that innateness is not well-defined in biology and the practice of ascribing innateness to various biological traits should be dropped from respectable science. Elsewhere (Ariew 1996) I argued that despite the arguments of critics, there really is a biological phenomenon underlying the concept of innateness. On my view, innateness is best understood in terms of C.H. Waddingtons concept of canalization, i.e. the degree to which a trait is innate is the degree to which its developmental outcome is canalized. The degree to which a developmental outcome is canalized is the degree to which the developmental process is bound to produce a particular endstate despite environmental fluctuations both in the developments initial state and during the course of development. The canalization account differs in many ways to the traditional ways that ethologists such as Konrad Lorenz originally understood the concept of innateness. Most importantly, on the canalization account the distinction between innate and acquired is not a dichotomy, as Konrad Lorenz had it, but rather a matter of degree difference that lies along a spectrum with highly canalized development outcomes on the one end and highly environmentally sensitive development outcomes on the other end. Nevertheless, I justified the canalization account on the basis of a set of desiderata or criteria that I suggested falls-out of what seemed uncontroversial about Lorenzs account of innateness (briefly): innateness is a property of a developing individual, innateness denotes environmental stability, and innate-ascriptions are useful in certain natural selection explanations (more below). From that same set of desiderata I argued (in my 1996) that neither the concept of heritability nor of norms of reactionstwo concepts from population geneticssuffice to ground innateness. In this essay, I wish to provide further support of the canalization account in two ways. First, I wish to better motivate the desiderata by revisiting a debate between Konrad Lorenz and Daniel Lehrman over the meaning and explanatory usefulness of innate ascriptions in ethology. Second, I wish to compare my canalization account of innateness with accounts proposed by contemporary philosophers, one by Stephen Stich (1975), another by Elliott Sober (forthcoming), and a third by William Wimsatt (1986).Andre Ariew1999-07-12Z2011-03-11T08:53:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/387This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3871999-07-12ZIntersubjective ScienceThe study of consciousness in modern science is hampered by deeply ingrained, dualist presuppositions about the nature of consciousness. In particular, conscious experiences are thought to be private and subjective, contrasting with physical phenomena which are public and objective. In the present article, I argue that all observed phenomena are, in a sense, private to a given observer, although there are some events to which there is public access. Phenomena can be objective in the sense of intersubjective, investigators can be objective in the sense of truthful or dispassionate, and procedures can be objective in being well-specified, but observed phenomena cannot be objective in the sense of being observer-free. Phenomena are only repeatable in the sense that they are judged by a community of observers to be tokens of the same type. Stripped of its dualist trappings the empirical method becomes if you carry out these procedures you will observe or experience these results - which applies as much to a science of consciousness as it does to physics.Max Velmans1999-12-15Z2011-03-11T08:53:41Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/125This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1251999-12-15ZIntroductionThe introduction to the special issue briefly discusses the origins and development of the word "pragmatics", pragmatic theory and its application to neurolinguistics. The special issue covers a total of 11 articles investigating pragmatic and neuropragmatic issues from different theoretical, experimental and clinical perspectives.Brigitte Stemmer2002-07-31Z2011-03-11T08:54:57Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2353This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/23532002-07-31ZIs it Time to Take the Paper Out of Serial Publication?
The ramifications of shifting from paper to electronic serial publication are discussed in light of the recent National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposal for a comprehensive electronic archive of peer-reviewed and preprint publications. The paper evaluates six concerns that have been expressed about the conversion to a purely electronic journal system and discusses the economic impact and growing tension among authors, publishers and librarians over scholarly publicationDavid J Solomon2001-01-15Z2011-03-11T08:54:29Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1230This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/12302001-01-15ZJungian Analysis and BiologyAn archetype is a psychological invariant, common to each of us, which appears to be inherited rather than learned. But there are not enough genes to account for inherited archetypes. The contradiction is explained in terms of emergent self-organization. The apparent "purposefulness" both of dreams and of psychological maturation may also be explained by self-organization. Evidence is drawn from biology and from clinical work with patients. Maxson John McDowell2002-11-24Z2011-03-11T08:54:51Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2002This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/20022002-11-24ZJungian Analysis and BiologyAn archetype is a psychological invariant, common to each of us, which appears to be inherited rather than learned. But there are not enough genes to account for inherited archetypes. The contradiction is explained in terms of emergent self-organization. The apparent "purposefulness" both of dreams and of psychological maturation may also be explained by self-organization. Evidence is drawn from biology and from clinical work with patients. Maxson John McDowell1999-03-18Z2011-03-11T08:54:17Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/801This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8011999-03-18ZLanguage identification with suprasegmental cues: A study based on speech resynthesisThis paper proposes a new experimental paradigm to explore the discriminability of languages, a question which is crucial to the child born in a bilingual environment. This paradigm employs the speech resynthesis technique, enabling the experimenter to preserve or degrade acoustic cues such as phonotactics, syllabic rhythm or intonation from natural utterances. English and Japanese sentences were resynthesized, preserving broad phonotactics, rhythm and intonation (Condition 1), rhythm and intonation (Condition 2), intonation only (Condition 3), or rhythm only (Condition 4). The findings support the notion that syllabic rhythm is a necessary and sufficient cue for French adult subjects to discriminate English from Japanese sentences. The results are consistent with previous research using low-pass filtered speech, as well as with phonological theories predicting rhythmic differences between languages. Thus, the new methodology proposed appears to be well-suited to study language discrimination. Applications for other domains of psycholinguistic research and for automatic language identification are considered.Franck RamusJacques Mehler2001-09-17Z2011-03-11T08:54:48Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1802This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/18022001-09-17ZLearning to Extract Keyphrases from TextMany academic journals ask their authors to provide a list of about five to fifteen key words, to appear on the first page of each article. Since these key words are often phrases of two or more words, we prefer to call them keyphrases. There is a surprisingly wide variety of tasks for which keyphrases are useful, as we discuss in this paper. Recent commercial software, such as Microsoft?s Word 97 and Verity?s Search 97, includes algorithms that automatically extract keyphrases from documents. In this paper, we approach the problem of automatically extracting keyphrases from text as a supervised learning task. We treat a document as a set of phrases, which the learning algorithm must learn to classify as positive or negative examples of keyphrases. Our first set of experiments applies the C4.5 decision tree induction algorithm to this learning task. The second set of experiments applies the GenEx algorithm to the task. We developed the GenEx algorithm specifically for this task. The third set of experiments examines the performance of GenEx on the task of metadata generation, relative to the performance of Microsoft?s Word 97. The fourth and final set of experiments investigates the performance of GenEx on the task of highlighting, relative to Verity?s Search 97. The experimental results support the claim that a specialized learning algorithm (GenEx) can generate better keyphrases than a general-purpose learning algorithm (C4.5) and the non-learning algorithms that are used in commercial software (Word 97 and Search 97). Peter Turney2000-10-16Z2011-03-11T08:54:25Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1021This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/10212000-10-16ZLearning without limits: from problem solving towards a Unified Theory of LearningLearning is usually studied on the basis of binary distinctions like implicit vs. explicit learning, using instance vs. using rules, connectionist vs. symbolist, etc. In this thesis it is argued that many of these distinctions are not useful at all in understanding learning. This statement is supported by a large set of models in ACT-R, a cognitive architecture developed by J.R. Anderson. These models demonstrate that deeper understanding is often gained when the traditional distinctions are ignored.Niels Taatgen2003-08-16Z2011-03-11T08:55:20Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3112This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/31122003-08-16ZLogical connectives, relationships and relevanceThis paper was written in the context of a workshop (held in 1989) on logical connectives in discourse. It addresses difficulties that arise from attempts at analysing logical connectives by assigning logical relations to them, taken from a typological listing. As the workshop itself showed, such attempts typically face the problem of on the one hand needing to be broad enough to cover all the instances of relations found in texts and on the other hand needing to be specific enough to differentiate types of relationships from each other.
Applying the relevance-theoretic framework proposed by Sperber and Wilson, this paper argued that the root of the problem is that (logical) connectivity in discourse is not created by a fixed set of interpropositional or rhetorical relations, but by the search for relevance, through the inferential interaction between a given utterance and its context. This explains the virtually unlimited variety of relations that can and do arise in texts, without reliance on any defined set of relations.
After a brief introduction to the relevance-theoretical framework, the paper applies it to the analysis of the connective –m in Silt’i, an Ethio-Semitic language. It attempts to show how the variety of relations associated with this connective can be explained in terms of the interaction of a simple semantic property with different pieces of contextual information, accessed in the search for relevance.
The paper then proposes and illustrates three methods of testing the validity of such relevance-theoretic analyses of connectivity, two of which can be carried out experimentally.
Dr Ernst-August Gutt2002-09-30Z2011-03-11T08:55:00Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2486This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/24862002-09-30ZLuminous Intensity for Traffic Signals: A Scientific Basis for Performance SpecificationsHumnan factors experiments on visual responses to simulated traffic signals using incandescent lamps and light-emitting diodes are described.John D. BulloughPeter R. BoyceAndrew BiermanKathryn M. ConwayMichelle Kun HuangConan P. O'RourkeClaudia M. HunterAkiko Nakata2002-10-17Z2011-03-11T08:55:04Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2538This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/25382002-10-17ZLuminous Intensity for Traffic Signals: A Scientific Basis for Performance Specifications - AppendicesLuminous Intensity for Traffic Signals: A Scientific Basis for Performance Specifications - AppendicesJohn D. BulloughPeter R. BoyceAndrew BiermanKathryn M. ConwayKun HuangConan P. O'RourkeClaudia M. HunterAkiko Nakata2001-03-13Z2011-03-11T08:54:36Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1369This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/13692001-03-13ZMagnetic Resonance Imaging Brain Size/IQ Relations in Turkish University StudentsThe relation of IQ (Cattell's Culture Fair Intelligence Test) to brain size was studied in 103 right- and left-handed men and women at Ataturk University in eastern Turkey. Cerebral areas were measured on a midsagittal
section of the brain using MRI. An overall correlation of 40 was found between MRI-measured total area and IQ thereby further supporting the IQ¯brain size hypothesis. Additional analyses suggested that these results may need qualification. In men, only anterior cerebral area correlated with IQ. In women, total and posterior cerebral areas were correlated with IQ. Other results varied by handedness.Uner TanMeliha TanPinar PolatYasar CeylanSelami SumaAdnan Okur2012-04-25T13:00:21Z2012-04-25T13:00:21Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8189This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/81892012-04-25T13:00:21ZMaking your own retrograde carrierOne of the problems faced by manufacturers is the difficulty in constructing a robust and reliable, angled applicator tip. This can be overcome by handmaking your own retrograde carrier. The applicator tip may be bent to about 50 degrees and, if a kink occurs while bending the tip, it can be replaced easily by a new modified needle. Because the wire used is flexible, it can adapt to the bend without a problem. Narrower carriers can also be made using a 20-G needle, perhaps more suitable for retrograde fillings of molar apices. Because the carrier is designed to be used once only, the problems of it being difficult to load and liable to blockages should not arise.Dr. W.L. Chaingeowy@um.edu.myW.C. Ngeow2012-04-25T13:03:52Z2012-04-25T13:03:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8164This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/81642012-04-25T13:03:52ZMedian mental sinus in twinsSinus on the chin can be the result of a chronic apical abscess due to pulp necrosis of a mandibular anterior tooth. The tooth is usually asymptomatic, and a dental cause is therefore not apparent to the patient or the unsuspecting clinician. Not infrequently, the patient may seek treatment from a dermatologist or general surgeon instead of a dentist. Excision and repair of the fistula may be carried out with subsequent breakdown because the dental pathology is not removed. This paper reports the presence of median mental sinus of dental origin in twins. One case healed following root canal therapy while the other required both root canal therapy and surgery to eliminate the infection.S.T. OngDr. W.C. Ngeowngeowy@um.edu.my2000-08-07Z2011-03-11T08:54:22Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/921This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/9212000-08-07ZMemory Evolutive SystemsNatural autonomous systems, such as biological, neural, social or cultural systems, are open, self-organized systems with a more or less large hierarchy of interacting complexity levels; they are able to memorize their experiences and to adapt to various conditions through a change of behavior. These last fifteen years, the Authors have developed a mathematical model for these systems, based on Category Theory. The aim of the paper is to give an overview of this model, called Memory Evolutive Systems.Andree EhresmannJean-Paul Vanbremeersch2004-04-14Z2011-03-11T08:55:31Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3560This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/35602004-04-14ZA mentalist framework for linguistic and extralinguistic communicationWe outline some components of a mentalist theory of human communicative competence. Communication in our species is an intentional and overt type of social interaction, based on each agent's capability of entertaining shared mental states and of acting so as to make certain mental states shared with the other. Communicative meaning is a matter of ascription: it is not an intrinsic property of a communicative act, but is instead created here and now as the shared construction of the interlocutors. We then discuss how communicative actions are superficially realized by our species, focusing in particular on the difference between linguistic and extralinguistic (that is, gestural) means of expression. Linguistic communication is the communicative use of a symbol system, whereas extralinguistic communication is the communicative use of a set of symbols. The difference turns out to be a matter of processing rather than of intrinsic structure.
Bruno G. BaraMaurizio Tirassa1999-02-19Z2011-03-11T08:54:17Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/799This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/7991999-02-19ZA model of learning task-specific knowledge for a new taskIn this paper I will present a detailed ACT-R model of how the task-specific knowledge for a new, complex task is learned. The model is capable of acquiring its knowledge through experience, using a declarative representation that is gradually compiled into a procedural representation. The model exhibits several characteristics that concur with Fitts theory of skill learning, and can be used to show that individual differences in working memory capacity initially have a large impact on performance, but that this impact diminished after sufficient experience. Some preliminary experimental data support these findings.Niels A. Taatgen2002-01-11Z2011-03-11T08:54:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2022This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/20222002-01-11ZModeling the evolution of communication: From stimulus associations to grounded symbolic associationsThis paper describes a model for the evolution of communication systems using simple syntactic rules, such as word combinations. It also focuses on the distinction between simple word-object associations and symbolic relationships. The simulation method combines the use of neural networks and genetic algorithms. The behavioral task is influenced by Savage-Rumbaugh & Rumbaughs (1978) ape language experiments. The results show that languages that use combination of words (e.g. verb-object rule) can emerge by auto-organization and cultural transmission. Neural networks are tested to see if evolved languages are based on symbol acquisition. The implications of this model for Deacons (1997) hypothesis on the role of symbolic acquisition for the origin of language are discussed.Angelo Cangelosi2001-11-23Z2011-03-11T08:54:49Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1913This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19132001-11-23ZModeling the self-organization of directional selectivity in the primary visual cortexA model is proposed to demonstrate how neurons in the primary visual cortex could self-organize to represent the direction of motion. The model is based on a temporal extension of the Self-Organizing Map where neurons act as leaky integrators. The map is trained with moving Gaussian inputs, and it develops a retinotopic map with orientation columns that divide into areas of opposite direction selectivity, as found in the visual cortex.
Igor FarkasRisto Miikkulainen2001-05-10Z2011-03-11T08:54:37Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1479This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/14792001-05-10ZModelling Emotions with Multidimensional LogicOne of the objectives of Artificial Intelligence has been the modelling of "human" characteristics, such as emotions,
behaviour, conscience, etc. But in such characteristics we might find certain degree of contradiction. Previous work on
modelling emotions and its problems are reviewed. A model for emotions is proposed using multidimensional logic,
which handles the degree of contradiction that emotions might have. The model is oriented to simulate emotions in
artificial societies. The proposed solution is also generalized for actions which might overcome contradiction
(conflictive goals in agents, for example.).Carlos Gershenson1998-12-21Z2011-03-11T08:54:17Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/778This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/7781998-12-21ZModelling the Developing Mind: From Structure to ChangeThis paper presents a theory of cognitive change. The theory assumes that the fundamental causes of cognitive change reside in the architecture of mind. Thus, the architecture of mind as specified by the theory is described first. It is assumed that the mind is a three-level universe involving (1) a processing system that constrains processing potentials, (2) a set of specialized capacity systems that guide understanding of different reality and knowledge domains, and (3) a hypecognitive system that monitors and controls the functioning of all other systems. The paper then specifies the types of change that may occur in cognitive development (changes within the levels of mind, changes in the relations between structures across levels, changes in the efficiency of a structure) and a series of general (e.g., metarepresentation) and more specific mechanisms (e.g., bridging, interweaving, and fusion) that bring the changes about. It is argued that different types of change require different mechanisms. Finally, a general model of the nature of cognitive development is offered. The relations between the theory proposed in the paper and other theories and research in cognitive development and cognitive neuroscience is discussed throughout the paper.Andreas DemetriouAthanassios Raftopoulos1999-05-19Z2011-03-11T08:53:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/381This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3811999-05-19ZMORE MYSTERIES ABOUT CONSCIOUSNESS? Book Review of Davies & Humphreys on ConsciousnessThis commentary is a plea to re-read after five years one, as it seems, almost forgotten book which has nevertheless clearly influenced the development of empirical approaches to consciousness. The book provides an illuminating look at the early period to the modern revival of consciousness research. Its subtitle 'Psychological and Philosophical Essays' describes the book's range precisely. Early attempts to disect the mystery of consciousness and many themes that are still preoccupying modern consciousness research are covered. While some areas of research have been progressed, theoretical views have not changed dramatically, and this book still seems a good guide to embark on a mysterious journey when exploring consciousness.W.H. Dittrich1999-05-04Z2011-03-11T08:54:18Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/811This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8111999-05-04ZMovement prediction and movement productionThe prediction of future positions of moving objects occurs in cases of actively produced and passively observed movement. We study the difference between active and passive movement prediction by asking subjects to estimate displacements of an occluded moving target, where the movement is produced by the subject or passively observed; in the passive condition, the target trajectory is either a replay of a preceding active trajectory, or a constant-speed approximation. In the active condition estimates are more anticipatory than in the passive conditions, but in all conditions, estimates become less anticipatory as the prediction distance increases, or the prediction time decreases. Decreasing the congruence between motor action and visual feedback diminishes but does not eliminate the anticipatory effect of action; introducing eye tracking, however, does eliminate it. Our results are compatible with common mechanisms underlying both active and passive movement prediction, with additional movement-related information in the active case making predictions more anticipatory.Mark WexlerFrançois Klam1999-07-06Z2011-03-11T08:53:40Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/104This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1041999-07-06ZNeural activation, information, and phenomenal consciousness.O'Brien & Opie defend a "vehicle" rather than a "process" theory of consciousness largely on the grounds that only conscious information is "explicit". I argue that preconscious and unconscious representations can be functionally explicit (semantically well-formed and causally active). I also suggest that their analysis of how neural activation space mirrors the information structure of phenomenal experience fits more naturally into a dual-aspect theory of information than into their reductive physicalism.Max Velmans1999-10-08Z2011-03-11T08:54:03Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/550This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5501999-10-08ZNeural-based Queueing System Modelling for Service Quality Estimation in B-ISDN NetworksThis paper addresses an original scheme based on feedforward neural networks, aimed at modelling queueing systems fed with bursty traffic. A neural network is trained to anticipate the average number of waiting cells, the cell loss rate and the coefficient of variation of the cell inter-departure time, given the mean rate, the peak rate and the coefficient of variation of the cell inter-arrival time. Our long-term goal is the design of a preventive control strategy in B-ISDN networks based on distributed neural networks modelling each queueing system located at the input and output ports of the switching facilities. To illustrate the potential of neural networks for modelling queueing systems, a neural network is successfully trained to model OnOff/D/1/c, OnOff/OnOff/1/c and multi-OnOff/D/1/c queueing systems.Alex AussemSebastien RouxelRaymond Marie2000-01-21Z2011-03-11T08:53:41Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/128This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1282000-01-21ZNeuroethology has pregnant agendasTwo of the many agendas of neuroethology are illustrated with examples. (1) What cells or assemblies of cells and what patterns of activity are sufficient to accomplish recognition of ethologically important stimulus configurations and initiation of behavioral action? The theme is the opportunities available in relatively neglected approaches to these objectives. As an example, the approach is developed of gentle microstimulation of loci in the brain where cells have been found responsive to complex, natural stimuli, under conditions conducive to the performance of tell-tale behavior. Other approaches include (a) microinjection of modulatory substances into regions with such complex recognition cells and (b) recording in efficient and informative ways, by using multiple electrode arrays, recording wideband activity, in behaving animals. (2) What brain and behavior differences has evolution produced between major taxa at distinct grades of complexity? Emphasized are our relative ignorance of basic aspects of connectivity, physiology and cognitive capacities in the major grades and the probability of surprises from new studies that employ comparison.T.H. Bullock2005-06-05Z2011-03-11T08:56:04Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/4376This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/43762005-06-05ZNeuronal connectivity, regional differentiation, and brain damage in humans. When circumscribed brain regions are damaged in humans, highly specific iimpairments in language, memory, problem solving, and cognition are observed. Neurosurgery such as "split brain" or hemispherectomy, for example has shown that encompassing regions, the left and right cerebral hemispheres each control human behavior in unique ways. Observations stretching over 100 years of patients with unilateral focal brain damage have revealed, withouth the theoretical benefits of "cognitive neuroscience" or "cognitive psychology," that human behavior is indeed controlled by the brain and its neurons.Dahlia W. Zaidel1998-10-19Z2011-03-11T08:53:39Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/66This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/661998-10-19ZA new view on graspingReaching out for an object is often described as consisting of two components that are based on different visual information. Information about the objects position and orientation guides the hand to the object, while information about the objects shape and size determines how the fingers move relative to the thumb to grasp it. We propose an alternative description, which consists of determining suitable positions on the object on the basis of its shape, surface roughness, and so on and then moving ones thumb and fingers more or less independently to these positions. We modelled this description using a minimum jerk approach, whereby the finger and thumb approach their respective target positions approximately orthogonally to the surface. Our model predicts how experimental variables such as object size, movement speed, fragility, and required accuracy will influence the timing and size of the maximum aperture of the hand. An extensive review of experimental studies on grasping showed that the predicted influences correspond to human behaviour.Jeroen B.J. SmeetsEli Brenner2004-04-30Z2011-03-11T08:55:32Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3604This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/36042004-04-30Z Nonhuman primates as models of hemispheric specializationThe present chapter concerns the issue of hemispheric specialization
for perceptual and cognitive processes. In spite of a long-lasting view that only humans are lateralized (e.g., Warren, 1980), there is now strong documentation for anatomical lateralizations, functional lateralizations, or both in several animal taxa, including birds, rodents, and nonhuman primates (see Bradshaw & Rogers, 1993; Hellige, 1993). We selectively report demonstrations from studies of nonhuman primates. After a short review of the evidence for structural (anatomical) lateralization, we describe...J VauclairJ FagotD Dépy1999-04-28Z2011-03-11T08:53:39Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/83This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/831999-04-28ZThe number of synaptic inputs and the synchrony of large sparse neuronal networksThe prevalence of coherent oscillations in various frequency ranges in the central nervous system raises the question of the mechanisms that synchronize large populations of neurons. We study synchronization in models of large networks of spiking neurons with random sparse connectivity. Synchrony occurs only when the average number of synapses, M that a cell receives is larger than a critical value, $M_c$. Below $M_c$, the system is in an asynchronous state. In the limit of weak coupling, assuming identical neurons, we reduce the model to a system of phase oscillators which are coupled via an effective interaction, $\Gamma$. In this framework, we develop an approximate theory for sparse networks of identical neurons to estimate $M_c$ analytically from the Fourier coefficients of $\Gamma$. Our approach relies on the assumption that the dynamics of a neuron depend mainly on the number of cells that are presynaptic to it. We apply this theory to compute $M_c$ for the integrate-and-fire (\IF) model as a function of the intrinsic neuronal properties (\eg the refractory period $T_r$), the synaptic time constants and the strength of the external stimulus, $\Iapp$. When the neurons are inhibitory, $M_c$ is found to be non-monotonous with the strength of $\Iapp$. For $T_r=0$, we estimate the minimum value of $M_c$ over all the parameters of the model to be $363.8$. Above $M_c$, the neurons tend to fire in: 1) smeared one cluster states at high firing rates and 2) smeared two or more cluster states at low firing rates. For excitatory interactions synchrony can be achieved only if the firing rate is not too high. However, our estimates of $M_c$ are, in general, much smaller than for inhibitory networks for similar level of activity. Above $M_c$ excitatory networks settle into smeared 1-cluster states.Refractoriness decreases $M_c$ at intermediate and high firing rates. These results are compared against numerical simulations. We show numerically that systems with different sizes, $N$, behave in the same way provided the connectivity, $M$, is such a way that $1/ \Meff = 1 / M - 1 / N$ remains constant when $N$ varies. This allows one to extrapolate the large $N$ behavior of a network from numerical simulations of networks of relatively small sizes ($N=800$ in our case). We find that our theory predicts with remarkable accuracy the value of $M_c$ and the patterns of synchrony above $M_c$, provided the synaptic coupling is not too large. We also study the strong coupling regime of inhibitory sparse networks. All of our simulations demonstrate that increasing the coupling strength reduces the level of synchrony of the neuronal activity. Above a critical coupling strength, the network activity is asynchronous. We point out that there is a fundamental limitation for the mechanisms of synchrony relying on inhibition alone, if heterogeneities in the intrinsic properties of the neurons and spatial fluctuations in the external input are also taken into account.David GolombDavid Hansel1998-09-25Z2011-03-11T08:54:15Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/740This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/7401998-09-25ZOn the neural computation of utility: implications from studies of brain stimulation reward1. Like other vertebrates, from goldfish to humans, rats will work in order to deliver electrical stimulation to certain brain sites. Although the stimulation produces no evident physiological benefit, it is sought out avidly, as if it were a biologically significant resource. Thus, it has long been thought that the rewarding stimulation activates neural circuitry involved in the evaluation and selection of goals. 2. Computing the utility of goal objects involves a tightly integrated set of perceptual, cognitive, and motivational mechanisms. I argue that rewarding electrical brain stimulation engages only a subset of these mechanisms. If so, comparison of the ways in which the utility of electrical brain stimulation and natural reinforcers are computed may highlight operating principles and isolate components of the computational mechanisms. 3. In the view proposed here, information about goal objects and consummatory acts is processed, in parallel, in three different channels. 3.1. Perceptual processing indicates what and where the goal object is. 3.2. A stopwatch-like interval timer predicts when or how often the goal object will be available. 3.3. Under the influence of information about the current physiological state, an evaluative channel returns a subjective weighting of strength variables such as the concentration of a sucrose solution or the temperature of an air current. 3.4. The output of these channels is recorded in multidimensional records that include 3.4.1. information of perceptual origin about amount and kind (e.g., food, water,or salt) 3.4.2. information from the timer about rate and delay 3.4.3. a subjective assessment of intensity provided by the evaluative channel 4. This chapter addresses the relationships between brain stimulation reward (BSR), the perceptual, interval timing, and evaluative channels, and the variants of utility proposed by Kahneman and his coworkers on the basis of their studies of evaluation and choice in human subjects. 4.1. It is argued that the output of the evaluative channel can be manifested in experience as pleasure or suffering but that awareness is not necessary in order for this signal to influence action. 5. The neural signal injected by rewarding electrical stimulation is portrayed as providing meaningful information about rate, delay and intensity but not about amount or kind. This proposal is used to account for 5.1. competition and summation between BSR and natural rewards 5.2. differential effects of physiological feedback on the utility of BSR and natural rewards 5.3. matching of behavioral allocation to the relative rates and intensities of BSR 5.4. differences in the elasticity of demand for BSR and food in a closed economy 5.5. the high substitutability of BSR for food and water in an open economy 6. The powerful aftereffect of BSR that potentiates efforts to obtain additional stimulation is related to expectancy.Peter Shizgal1999-08-27Z2011-03-11T08:54:19Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/829This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8291999-08-27ZOn the Support that the Special and General Theories of Relativity Provide for Rocks Argument Concerning Induced Self-MotionThough Einstein and other physicists recognized the importance of an observer being at rest in an inertial reference frame for the special theory of relativity, the supporting psychological structures were not discussed much by physicists. On the other hand, Rock wrote of the factors involved in the perception of motion, including ones own motion. Rock thus came to discuss issues of significance to relativity theory, apparently without any significant understanding of how his theory might be related to relativity theory. In this paper, connections between Rocks theory on the perception of ones own motion, as well as empirical work supporting it, and relativity theory are explored.Douglas M. Snyder1999-12-15Z2011-03-11T08:53:41Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/126This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1261999-12-15ZAn On-Line Interview with Noam Chomsky: On the Nature of Pragmatics and Related IssuesThe authors and editor of the special issue of Brain and Language: Pragmatics: Theoretical and Clinical Issues as well as the editor of Brain and Language framed some questions which were sent to and readily discussed by Noam Chomsky via e-mail.Brigitte Stemmer2003-01-09Z2011-03-11T08:55:08Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2701This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/27012003-01-09ZOptimal control methods for simulating the perception of causality in young infantsThere is a growing debate among developmental theorists concerning the perception of causality in young infants. Some theorists advocate a top-down view, e.g., that infants reason about causal events on the basis of intuitive physical principles. Others argue instead for a bottom-up view of infant causal knowledge, in which causal perception emerges from a simple set of associative learning rules. In order to test the limits of the bottom-up view, we propose an optimal control model (OCM) of infant causal perception. OCM is trained to find an optimal pattern of eye movements for maintaining sight of a target object. We first present a series of simulations which illustrate OCM's ability to anticipate the outcome of novel, occluded causal events, and then compare OCM's performance with that of 9-month-old infants. The impications for developmental theory and research are discussedMatthew SchlesingermattiejoAndrew Barto2012-04-25T12:59:47Z2012-04-25T12:59:47Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8179This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/81792012-04-25T12:59:47ZOrbital cellulitis as a sole symptom of odontogenic infectionA case of periapical infection resulting in unilateral maxillary sinusitis and cellulitis of the ipsilateral lower eyelid is presented. The sole symptom was right orbital swelling. The possible pathway for the spread of this type of infection predisposing factors and possible complications are reviewed. The value of radiographic examination and antibiotic therapy are also discussed.Dr. W.C. Ngeowngeowy@um.edu.my2000-08-11Z2011-03-11T08:54:22Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/928This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/9282000-08-11ZPhonological representations and repetition primingAn ubiquitous phenomenon in psychology is the `repetition effect': a repeated stimulus is processed better on the second occurrence than on the first. Yet, what counts as a repetition? When a spoken word is repeated, is it the acoustic shape or the linguistic type that matters? In the present study, we contrasted the contribution of acoustic and phonological features by using participants with different linguistic backgrounds: they came from two populations sharing a common vocabulary (Catalan) yet possessing different phonemic systems. They performed a lexical decision task with lists containing words that were repeated verbatim, as well as words that were repeated with one phonetic feature changed. The feature changes were phonemic, i.e. linguistically relevant, for one population, but not for the other. The results revealed that the repetition effect was modulated by linguistic, not acoustic, similarity: it depended on the subjects' phonemic system.
Christophe PallierNuria Sebastian-GallesAngels Colome2002-06-29Z2011-03-11T08:54:56Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2299This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/22992002-06-29ZA physiologically based approach to consciousnessThe nature of a scientific theory of consciousness is defined by comparison with scientific theories in the physical sciences. The differences between physical, algorithmic and functional complexity are highlighted, and the architecture of a functionally complex electronic system created to relate system operations to device operations is compared with a scientific theory. It is argued that there are two qualitatively different types of functional architecture, and that electronic systems have the instruction architecture based on exchange of unambiguous information between functional components, and biological brains have been constrained by natural selection pressures into the recommendation architecture based on exchange of ambiguous information. The mechanisms by which a recommendation architecture could heuristically define its own functionality are described, and compared with memory in biological brains. Dream sleep is interpreted as the mechanism for minimizing information exchange between functional components in a heuristically defined functional system. The functional role of consciousness of self is discussed, and the route by which the experience of that function described at the psychological level can be related to physiology through a functional architecture is outlined.l andrew coward2002-06-29Z2011-03-11T08:54:56Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2303This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/23032002-06-29ZA Physiologically Based System Theory of ConsciousnessA system which uses large numbers of devices to perform a complex functionality is forced to adopt a simple functional architecture by the needs to construct copies of, repair, and modify the system. A simple functional architecture means that functionality is partitioned into relatively equal sized components on many levels of detail down to device level, a mapping exists between the different levels, and exchange of information between components is minimized. In the instruction architecture functionality is partitioned on every level into instructions, which exchange unambiguous system information and therefore output system commands. The von Neumann architecture is a special case of the instruction architecture in which instructions are coded as unambiguous system information. In the recommendation (or pattern extraction) architecture functionality is partitioned on every level into repetition elements, which can freely exchange ambiguous information and therefore output only system action recommendations which must compete for control of system behavior. Partitioning is optimized to the best tradeoff between even partitioning and minimum cost of distributing data. Natural pressures deriving from the need to construct copies under DNA control, recover from errors, failures and damage, and add new functionality derived from random mutations has resulted in biological brains being constrained to adopt the recommendation architecture. The resultant hierarchy of functional separations can be the basis for understanding psychological phenomena in terms of physiology. A theory of consciousness is described based on the recommendation architecture model for biological brains. Consciousness is defined at a high level in terms of sensory independent image sequences including self images with the role of extending the search of records of individual experience for behavioral guidance in complex social situations. Functional components of this definition of consciousness are developed, and it is demonstrated that these components can be translated through subcomponents to descriptions in terms of known and postulated physiological mechanisms. l andrew coward2000-02-02Z2011-03-11T08:53:41Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/136This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1362000-02-02ZPower spectra of ongoing activity of the snail brain can discriminate odorantsTo test the hypothesis that different odorants are likely to cause distinctive changes in the ongoing electrical activity of populations of olfactory cells, we investigated field potentials (FP) in the Helix brain and their alterations by odorants as seen by semimicroelectrodes in an isolated preparation of the rostrum with ist olfactory organ and whole central nervous system. Five pure chemicals and two natural odorants were applied as stimulants. Signals recorded both from the procerebrum (PC) and the visceral ganglion (VG) were analyzed. In the PC the five pure chemical odorants induce stimulus-specific characteristic responses, mainly in the low frequency range (<15 Hz). Regardless of odor intensity, the frequency of the peak power of sustained induced activity is constant for each chemical: ammonia at 0.2 ( <0.02 Hz; formic acid at 0.36 ( 0.03 Hz; 2-pentanol at 0.48 ( 0.04 Hz; 2-butanol at 0.67 ( 0.03 Hz; ethanol at 1.31 ( 0.09 Hz (means ( 95% confidence limits). These peak power frequencies, which we define as (odor-specific frequencies(, are confined to the low frequency range of < 2.5 Hz. Those of natural odorants are: onion (0.36 ( 0.14 Hz) and apple (1.1 ( 0.25 Hz). The activities evoked in the PC propagate to VG. The order of behavioral aversion determined by withdrawal reactions of the tentacles, 1% ammonia > formic acid > 2-pentanol > 2-butanol > ethanol, coincides with (the order of molecular affinity( as well as with the sequence of peak power frequencies. There seems to be a strong correlation among behavioral valence, chemical nature of an odorant, and odor-specific frequency. The finding that, in the Helix olfactory center, odor input is processed as odorant specific low frequency FP activity may represent some general phenomena of olfactory information processing.A. SchuttE. BasarT.H. Bullock2001-08-30Z2011-03-11T08:54:47Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1778This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/17782001-08-30ZThe Pragmatic Roots of ContextWhen modelling complex systems one can not include all the causal factors, but one has to settle for partial models. This is alright if the factors left out are either so constant that they can be ignored or one is able to recognise the circumstances when they will be such that the partial model applies. The transference of knowledge from the point of application to the point of learning utilises a combination of recognition and inference a simple model of the important features is learnt and later situations where inferences can be drawn from the model are recognised. Context is an abstraction of the collection of background features that are later recognised. Different heuristics for recognition and model formulation will be effective for different learning tasks. Each of these will lead to a different type of context. Given this, there are (at least) two ways of modelling context: one can either attempt to investigate the contexts that arise out of the heuristics that a particular agent actually applies (the `internal' approach); or (if this is feasible) one can attempt to model context using the external source of regularity that the heuristics exploit. There are also two basic methodologies for the investigation of context: a top-down (or `foundationalist') approach where one tries to lay down general, a priori principles and a bottom-up (or `scientific') approach where one can try and find what sorts of context arise by experiment and simulation. A simulation is exhibited which is designed to illustrate the practicality of the bottom-up approach in elucidating the sorts of internal context that arise in an artificial agent which is attempting to learn simple models of a complex environment. It ends with a plea for the cooperation of the AI and Machine Learning communities as both learning and inference is needed if context is to make complete sense.Bruce Edmonds2000-11-15Z2011-03-11T08:54:27Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1108This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/11082000-11-15ZPresynaptic lateral inhibition provides a better architecture for self-organising neural networksUnsupervised learning is an important property of the brain and of many artificial neural networks. A large variety of unsupervised learning algorithms have been proposed. This paper takes a different approach in considering the architecture of the neural network rather than the learning algorithm. It is shown that a self-organising neural network architecture using pre-synaptic lateral inhibition enables a single learning algorithm to find distributed, local, and topological representations as appropriate to the structure of the input data received. It is argued that such an architecture not only has computational advantages but is a better model of cortical self-organisation.Michael Spratling2000-02-08Z2011-03-11T08:53:53Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/401This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/4012000-02-08ZThe Problem of Cognitive DynamicsThis paper is devoted to an examination of some aspects of the central issue of Cognitive Dynamics, the issue about the conditions under which intentional mental states may persist over time. I discuss two main sorts of approach to the topic: the directly referential approach, which I take as best represented in David Kaplans views, and the neo-Fregean approach, which I take as best represented in Gareth Evanss views. The upshot of my discussion is twofold. On the one hand, I argue that both Kaplans account and Evanss account are on the whole defective (for different sorts of reason, of course); even though there are features of each of those views which seem to me to be along the right lines. On the other, and in spite of that, I claim that a broadly Fregean theory is still to be preferred since by positing semantically efficacious modes of presentation it is clearly better equipped to deal adequately with some important phenomena in the area. In particular, I argue that the notion of a memory-based demonstrative mode of presentation of an object (a spatio-temporal particular, a region in space, a period of time, etc.) turns out to be indispensable for the purpose of accounting for the persistence of an important range of mental states with propositional content over time.Joao Branquinho2004-04-30Z2011-03-11T08:55:32Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3595This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/35952004-04-30ZProcessing of above/below categorical spatial relations by baboons (Papio papio)Three video-formatted experiments investigated the categorization of ‘above’ and ‘below’ spatial relations in baboons (Papio papio). Using an identity matching-to-sample task, six baboons correctly matched line–dot stimuli based on the ‘above’ or ‘below’ location of the dot relative to the line (Experiment 1). Positive transfer of performance was then observed when the line–dot distance depicted in the sample stimulus differed from that of the two comparison stimuli (Experiment 2). Using a go:nogo procedure, two baboons were further trained to discriminate
whether a ‘B’ character was displayed ‘above’ or ‘below’ a ‘3’ character (Experiment 3). After training, a positive transfer of performance was observed with the same type of stimuli depicted in different type fonts. Altogether, these
results suggest that baboons may form conceptual representations of ‘above’ and ‘below’ spatial relations, and categorize visual forms on that basis.
D DépyJ FagotJ Vauclair2000-03-01Z2011-03-11T08:54:04Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/554This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5542000-03-01ZProspects for in-depth story understanding by computerWhile much research on the hard problem of in-depth story understanding by computer was performed starting in the 1970s, interest shifted in the 1990s to information extraction and word sense disambiguation. Now that a degree of success has been achieved on these easier problems, I propose it is time to return to in-depth story understanding. In this paper I examine the shift away from story understanding, discuss some of the major problems in building a story understanding system, present some possible solutions involving a set of interacting understanding agents, and provide pointers to useful tools and resources for building story understanding systems.Erik T. Mueller1999-05-29Z2011-03-11T08:54:18Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/812This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8121999-05-29ZPsychology and the criminal justice system: A reply to Haney and ZimbardoA reply to Haney & Zimbardo's recent article in the American Psychologist in which they claim that America's crime problem would be largely solved if the criminal justice system had only taken heed of the lessons learned decades ago in the Stanford Prison Project.DAVID t. Lykken2001-04-30Z2011-03-11T08:54:37Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1466This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/14662001-04-30ZPutting Content into a Vehicle Theory of ConsciousnessThe connectionist vehicle theory of phenomenal experience in the target article identifies
consciousness with the brain’s explicit representation of information in the form of stable
patterns of neural activity. Commentators raise concerns about both the conceptual and
empirical adequacy of this proposal. On the former front they worry about our reliance on
vehicles, on representation, on stable patterns of activity, and on our identity claim. On the latter
front their concerns range from the general plausibility of a vehicle theory to our specific
attempts to deal with the dissociation studies. We address these concerns, and then finish by
considering whether the vehicle theory we have defended has a coherent story to tell about the
active, unified subject to whom conscious experiences belong.Gerard O'BrienJon Opie2000-07-10Z2011-03-11T08:53:42Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/152This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1522000-07-10ZQuantitative morphology of human hippocampus early neuron developmentBackground: Previous findings in adults revealed significant hemispheric asymmetry in size of neuronal somata in hippocampal subfield CA2 (the resistant sector) with no age-related changes. Paucity of quantitative data on the developmental status of these protected neurons has led to the investigation of their morphology in comparison to neurons in adjacent subfield CA3, bilaterally. Methods: Bilateral coronal sections from postmortem hippocampus, 24 and 76 weeks postmenstrual age (gestational age plus postnatal age) were studied. The neurons were digitized and measured on a computer. Results: Soma size correlated positively and significantly with age in CA2 and CA3, bilaterally. CA2 somata were significantly larger (left 34%, right 32%) than adjacent CA3 somata. Variability in soma form or size increased appreciably with age, in both subfields, bilaterally, while variability in soma orientation was weakly correlated with brain growth. Conclusions: The results suggest that in early development there are similarities in hemispheric growth patterns in CA2 and CA3. Large CA2 soma size implies axonal connectivity to distantly located targets very early in development. The results have functional implications, including memory, to brain developmentDahlia W. Zaidel2004-04-30Z2011-03-11T08:55:32Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3596This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/35962004-04-30Z Reaction to spatial novelty and exploratory strategies in baboonsExploratory activity was examined in 4 young baboons with the aim of investigating the type of spatial coding (purely geometric and/or by taking into account the identity of the object) used for the configuration of objects. Animals were individually tested in an outdoor enclosure for their exploratory reactions
(contact time and order of spontaneous visits) to changes brought about to a configuration of different objects. Two kinds of spatial changes were made: a modification (1) of the shape of the configuration (by displacement of one object) and (2) of the spatial arrangement without changing the initial
shape (exchanging the location of two objects). In the second experiment, the effect of a spatial modification of the global geometry constituted by four identical objects was investigated. Finally, in the third experiment, a substitution of a familiar object with a novel one was performed without changing
the objects' configuration. The baboons strongly reacted to geometrical modifications of the configuration. In contrast, they were less sensitive to modifications of local features that did not affect the initial spatial configuration. Analyses of spontaneous exploratory activities revealed two types of exploratory
strategies (cyclic and back-and-forth). These data are discussed in relation to (1) the distinction between the encoding of geometric versus local spatial features and (2) the spatial function of exploratory activity.
S GouteuxJ VauclairC Thinus-Blanc2000-02-28Z2011-03-11T08:53:41Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/141This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1412000-02-28ZRegional differentiation of neuron morphology in human left and right hippocampus: Comparing normal to schizophreniaRegional differentiation based on size, form, and orientation angle of the soma of individual neurons in human post-mortem hippocampus was determined through correlations between pairs of hippocampal subfields in each side separately. The neurons were previously measured on a computer. In the normal cases, a left-right asymmetrical pattern of regional differentiation based on soma size emerged, while for form and orientation angle, the patterns appeared symmetrical. In schizophrenia, regional soma size, form, and orientation variability were expressed largely symmetrically. Regional correlations based on neuronal density revealed an asymmetrical hemispheric pattern in the normal cases versus a nearly symmetrical pattern in schizophrenia. Taken together, the inter-regional correlations favor a hippocampal landscape that deviates in each side from connectivity based on the canonical trisynaptic hippocampal circuitry. It is proposed that during morphogenesis, rudimentary inter-regional networks are formed through specific interactions between regional neurons; these networks are present in the adult hippocampus and may be vulnerable in brain diseases.D. W. Zaidel2001-02-25Z2011-03-11T08:54:33Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1315This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/13152001-02-25ZRegional Naming Patterns and the Culture of HonorThroughout American history, violence has been more common in
southern and western states than in northern states. Violence
continues to be viewed more positively and constructively in
these regions. This paper tests whether these regional
differences in violent behaviors and attitudes have had
linguistic consequences, in particular for name usage. Study
1 shows that place names in the South and West are more
likely than place names in the North to begin with violent
words like "gun" (e.g., Gun Point, FL) and "war" (e.g., War,
WV). Study 2 extends this phenomenon beyond place name
"fossils" to contemporary name choices by showing that
business names in the South and West are more likely than
those in the North to begin with violent words. Implications
of these naming patterns for the maintenance of regional
differences in violence are discussed.Michael Kelly2003-09-19Z2011-03-11T08:55:20Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3159This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/31592003-09-19ZReligion and Science - Sex and Society: Forms and Processes of CohesionReligion has been in the past, and still is in a number of countries, the main cohesive force holding populations, particularly genetically disparate ones, together in one system. Patterns of sexual behaviour (often strongly influenced by religious beliefs and prescriptions) in different societies have determined the organisational character of the society - from the nuclear family (now apparently in decline) in most Western countries and the extended family of earlier periods. Both religion and patterns of sexual behaviour as cohesive forces have been radically challenged by science, both as a mode of thought and as the source of technologies which change the environment in which societies operate. A sociobiology of societies has to be founded on a sociobiology of the individuals forming the society and on a biologizing of sociology. The survival of populations (interpreted as gene pools) and of societal forms are interlocked; a sociobiology of societies can start to consider the conditions and forces which over long periods determine the relative success or failure of nations and social systems. Robin Allott1999-07-01Z2011-03-11T08:54:02Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/546This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5461999-07-01ZRepresentation and processing of structures with binary sparse distributed codesThe schemes for compositional distributed representations include those allowing on-the-fly construction of fixed dimensionality codevectors to encode structures of various complexity. Similarity of such codevectors takes into account both structural and semantic similarity of represented structures. In this paper we provide a comparative description of sparse binary distributed representation developed in the frames of the Associative-Projective Neural Network architecture and more well-known Holographic Reduced Representations of Plate and Binary Spatter Codes of Kanerva. The key procedure in Associative-Projective Neural Networks is Context-Dependent Thinning which binds codevectors and maintains their sparseness. The codevectors are stored in structured memory array which can be realized as distributed auto-associative memory. Examples of distributed representation of structured data are given. Fast estimation of similarity of analogical episodes by the overlap of their codevectors is used in modeling of analogical reasoning for retrieval of analogs from memory and for analogical mapping.Dmitri A. Rachkovskij2001-06-05Z2011-03-11T08:54:39Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1532This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/15322001-06-05ZThe Role of Scenario, Deontic Conditionals and Problem Content in Wason´s Selection taskThis experiment exolores the influence of thematic content, the presence or absence of a scenario and the use of deontic or indicaive framing of conditional rules on performance on Wason´s selection task. Logical performance was affected by the content used(permission rules were the best, neutral the worst and obligation rules intermediate) and by the use of scenarios. The scenario effect interacted significantly with the problem framing such that the presence of a scenario facilitate performance only when problems were framed in a deontic rather than indicative manner. The presence of scenarios did not interact with the problem content. These results are discussed in terms of pragmatic influences on reasoning, within the frameworkof the Dual Process Theory (Evans & Over, 1996)Montserrat MartínMª Dolores ValiñaJ. St. B.T. Evans Evans2000-01-28Z2011-03-11T08:53:41Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/131This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1312000-01-28ZThe role of terminators and occlusion cues in motion integration and segmentation: a neural network modelThe perceptual interaction of terminators and occlusion cues with the functional processes of motion integration and segmentation is examined using a computational model. Inte-gration is necessary to overcome noise and the inherent ambiguity in locally measured motion direction (the aperture problem). Segmentation is required to detect the presence of motion discontinuities and to prevent spurious integration of motion signals between objects with different trajectories. Terminators are used for motion disambiguation, while occlusion cues are used to suppress motion noise at points where objects intersect. The model illustrates how competitive and cooperative interactions among cells carrying out these functions can account for a number of perceptual effects, including the chopsticks illusion and the occluded diamond illusion. Possible links to the neurophysiology of the middle temporal visual area (MT) are suggested.Lars H. LidenChristopher C. Pack2002-12-11Z2011-03-11T08:55:07Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2646This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/26462002-12-11ZSARDSRN: A NEURAL NETWORK SHIFT-REDUCE PARSERSimple Recurrent Networks (SRNs) have been widely used in natural language tasks. SARDSRN extends the SRN by
explicitly representing the input sequence in a SARDNET self-organizing map. The distributed SRN component leads to good generalization and robust cognitive properties, whereas the SARDNET map provides exact representations of the sentence constituents. This combination allows SARDSRN to learn to parse sentences with more complicated structure than can the SRN alone, and suggests that the approach could scale up to realistic natural language. Marshall R. MayberryRisto Miikkulainen2004-05-06Z2011-03-11T08:55:33Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3613This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/36132004-05-06ZSCRIPTKELL : a tool for measuring cognitive effort and time processing in writing and other complex cognitive activitiesWe present SCRIPTKELL, a computer-assisted experimental tool that makes it possible to measure the time and cognitive effort allocated to the subprocesses of writing and other cognitive activities, SCRIPTKELL was designed to easily use and modulate Kellogg's (1986) triple-task procedure,.which consists of a combination of three tasks: a writing task (or another task), a reaction time task (auditory signal detection), and a directed retrospection task (after each signal detection during writing). We demonstrate how this tool can be used to address several novel empirical and theoretical issues. In sum, SCRIPTKELL should facilitate the flexible realization of experimental designs and the investigation of critical issues concerning the functional characteristics of complex cognitive activities.
A PiolatO OliveJY RousseyO ThuninJ C Ziegler1999-09-29Z2011-03-11T08:54:20Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/833This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8331999-09-29ZSens et temps de la Gestalt (Gestalt theory: critical overview and contemporary relevance)Rather than mere psychological doctrine, Gestalt theory was conceived of as a general theory of form and organization deemed to lay a unified groundwork for several domains of scientific endeavor. Our aim in this article is to assess the legacy of this framework, and examine its relevance for present-day research in cognitive science. We thus survey the intellectual contexts within which Gestalt theory originated and evolved, and review some of its central features: a phenomenological approach to philosophy and science; grounding in the field theory of physics and in the theory of dynamical systems in mathematics; perception viewed as a general structure of cognition; intrinsic interrelatedness of forms and values; unitary approach to perceiving, acting, and expression. We hope this review will allow for a clarification of the status of Gestalt concepts in cognitive and language sciences, both with respect to fields of inquiry wherein they continue to exert substantial influence as well as in regard to fields from which all reference to Gestalt ideas has long since disappeared. We submit that the legacy of Gestalt theory will be most usefully reappraised with respect to its dynamic principles, although this reappraisal would entail a critical examination of the customary Gestalt concepts of time and psychogenesis, as well as a reconsideration of the status of motion and action in form (and/or meaning) constitution.Victor RosenthalYves-Marie Visetti2006-12-08Z2011-03-11T08:56:43Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5287This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/52872006-12-08ZSingle-digit and two-digit Arabic numerals address the same semantic number line Many theories about human number representation stress the importance of a central semantic representation that includes the magnitude information of small integer numbers, and that is conceived as an abstract, compressed number line. However, thus far there has been little or no direct evidence that units and teens are represented on the same number line. In two masked priming experiments, we show that single-digit and two-digit Arabic numerals are equally well primed by an Arabic numeral with the same number of digits as by an equally distant Arabic numeral with a different number of digits (e.g. the priming effect of 7 on the target 9 is the same as the priming effect of Il on the target 9). The finding was obtained both with a number naming task and with a parity judgement task. This is in line with the hypothesis that units and teens are part of a continuous number line.B. ReynvoetM. Brysbaert2000-02-02Z2011-03-11T08:53:41Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/137This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1372000-02-02ZSlow potentials in the brain: still little understood but gradually getting analytical attentionTwo classes of electrical activity in the central nervous system have been known for a long time: spikes with synaptic potentials and "slow" fluctuations (components mainly below ca. 100 Hz). Their relations to each other are still little known and an unfortunate schism persists in mutual disparagement by investigators who chiefly study one class or the other. The news I wish to highlight is that this schism is waning and this essay will be outmoded as more workers study both. I focus here on the class of slow potentials which in certain respects is the more neglected. This class should extend down into the less-known "infraslow" domain (power mainly below 0.1 Hz) - omnipresent, higher in amplitude and clearly significant functionally.T.H. Bullock1999-06-15Z2011-03-11T08:53:39Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/89This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/891999-06-15ZStatistical mechanics of neocortical interactions: EEG eigenfunctions of short-term memoryThis paper focuses on how bottom-up neocortical models can be developed into eigenfunction expansions of probability distributions appropriate to describe short-term memory in the context of scalp EEG. The mathematics of eigenfunctions are similar to the top-down eigenfunctions developed by Nunez, albeit they have different physical manifestations. The bottom-up eigenfunctions are at the local mesocolumnar scale, whereas the top-down eigenfunctions are at the global regional scale. However, as described in several joint papers, our approaches have regions of substantial overlap, and future studies may expand top-down eigenfunctions into the bottom-up eigenfunctions, yielding a model of scalp EEG that is ultimately expressed in terms of columnar states of neocortical processing of attention and short-term memory.Lester Ingber2000-01-24Z2011-03-11T08:53:41Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/129This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1292000-01-24ZStatistical mechanics of neocortical interactions: Reaction time correlates of the g factorA statistical mechanics of neuronal interactions (SMNI) is explored as providing some substance to a physiological basis of the g factor. Some specific elements of SMNI, previously used to develop a theory of short-term memory (STM) and a model of electroencephalography (EEG) are key to providing this basis. Specifically, Hick's Law, an observed linear relationship between reaction time (RT) and the information storage of STM, in turn correlated to a RT-g relationship, is derived.Lester Ingber2002-04-12Z2011-03-11T08:54:55Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2174This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/21742002-04-12ZStrategies for Representing Tone in African Writing SystemsTone languages provide some interesting challenges for the designers of new orthographies.
One approach is to omit tone marks, just as stress is not marked in English (zero marking).
Another approach is to do phonemic tone analysis and then make heavy use of diacritic
symbols to distinguish the `tonemes' (exhaustive marking). While orthographies based on
either system have been successful, this may be thanks to our ability to manage inadequate
orthographies rather than to any intrinsic advantage which is afforded by one or the other
approach. In many cases, practical experience with both kinds of orthography in sub-Saharan
Africa has shown that people have not been able to attain the level of reading and writing
fluency that we know to be possible for the orthographies of non-tonal languages. In some
cases this can be attributed to a sociolinguistic setting which does not favour vernacular
literacy. In other cases, the orthography itself might be to blame. If the orthography of a tone
language is difficult to user or to learn, then a good part of the reason, I believe, is that the
designer either has not paid enough attention to the function of tone in the language, or has
not ensured that the information encoded in the orthography is accessible to the ordinary
(non-linguist) user of the language. If the writing of tone is not going to continue to be a
stumbling block to literacy efforts, then a fresh approach to tone orthography is required, one
which assigns high priority to these two factors.
This article describes the problems with orthographies that use too few or too many tone
marks, and critically evaluates a wide range of creative intermediate solutions. I review the
contributions made by phonology and reading theory, and provide some broad methodological
principles to guide someone who is seeking to represent tone in a writing system. The tone
orthographies of several languages from sub-Saharan Africa are presented throughout the
article, with particular emphasis on some tone languages of Cameroon. Steven Bird1999-12-17Z2011-03-11T08:53:44Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/222This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2221999-12-17ZStrawson on Intended Meaning and ContextStrawson proposed in the early seventies an attractive threefold distinction regarding how context bears on the meaning of `what is said' when a sentence is uttered. The proposed scheme is somewhat crude and, being aware of this aspect, Strawson himself raised various points to make it more adequate. In this paper, we review the scheme of Strawson, note his concerns, and add some of our own. However, our main point is to defend the essence of Strawson's approach and to recommend it as a starting point for research into intended meaning and context.Varol AkmanFerda N. Alpaslan1999-07-14Z2011-03-11T08:53:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/388This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3881999-07-14ZSubjekt und Selbstmodell. Die Perspektivität phänomenalen Bewußtseins vor dem Hintergrund einer naturalistischen Theorie mentaler RepräsentationThis book contains a representationalist theory of self-consciousness and of the phenomenal first-person perspective. It draws on empirical data from the cognitive and neurosciences.Thomas K. Metzinger1999-04-22Z2011-03-11T08:54:18Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/804This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8041999-04-22ZSymbolic distance between numerosity and identity modulates Stroop-like interferenceThirty undergraduates participated in an experiment investigating the effect of the arithmetic difference between stimulus identity and stimulus numerosity in a numerical version of the Stroop task. It was found that digits symbolically close to the enumeration response reliably produced larger interference than digits that were farther from the enumeration response. This semantic distance effect (SDE) was found with different numerosities (1¸9) and different enumeration processes (counting and subitizing), and it increased as a function of numerosity in the subitizing range. These findings suggest that digit identity autonomously activates a magnitude representation organized as a compressed number line.Antonella PaveseCarlo Umiltà2001-01-11Z2011-03-11T08:54:28Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1204This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/12042001-01-11ZSympathy and subjectivityThis paper shows that even if the mental states of non-human animals lack phenomenological properties, as some accounts of mental-state consciousness imply, this need not prevent those states from being appropriate objects of sympathy and moral concern. The paper argues that the most basic form of mental (as opposed to biological) harm lies in the existence of thwarted agency, or thwarted desire, rather than in anything phenomenological. Peter Carruthers2002-03-12Z2011-03-11T08:54:54Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2135This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/21352002-03-12ZA system design for human factors studies of speech-enabled Web browsingThis paper describes the design of a system which will subsequently be used as the basis of a range of empirical studies aimed at discovering how best to harness speech recognition capabilities in multimodal multimedia computing. Initial work focuses on speech-enabled browsing of the World Wide Web, which was never designed for such use. System design is complete, and is being evaluated via usability testing.L. J AdamsS. DamperStevan HarnadW Hall2004-04-28Z2011-03-11T08:55:31Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3579This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/35792004-04-28ZTaking the trivial doctrine seriously: Functionalism, eliminativism, and materialism
Gold & Stoljar's characterization of the trivial doctrine and of its relationships with the radical one misses some differences that may be crucial. The radical doctrine can be read as a derivative of the computational version of functionalism that provides the backbone of current cognitive science and is fundamentally uninterested in biology: both doctrines are fundamentally wrong. The synthesis between neurobiology and psychology requires instead that minds be viewed as ontologically primitive, that is, as material properties of functioning bodies. G&S's characterization of the trivial doctrine should therefore be correspondingly modified.
Maurizio Tirassa2000-02-09Z2011-03-11T08:53:41Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/139This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1392000-02-09ZThe theory of the organism-environment system: III. Role of efferent influences on receptors in the formation of knowledge.The present article is an attempt to give - in the frame of the theory of the organism-environment system (Jarvilehto 1998a) - a new interpretation to the role of efferent influences on receptor activity and to the functions of senses in the formation of knowledge. It is argued, on the basis of experimental evidence and theoretical considerations, that the senses are not transmitters of environmental information, but they create a direct connection between the organism and the environment, which makes the development of a dynamic living system, the organism-environment system, possible. In this connection process the efferent influences on receptor activity are of particular significance, because with their help the receptors may be adjusted in relation to the parts of the environment which are most important in the achievement of behavioral results. Perception is the process of joining of new parts of the environment to the organism-environment system; thus, the formation of knowledge by perception is based on reorganization (widening and differentiation) of the organism-environment system, and not on transmission of information from the environment. With the help of the efferent influences on receptors each organism creates its own peculiar world which is simultaneously subjective and objective. The present considerations have far reaching influences as well on experimental work in neurophysiology and psychology of perception as on philosophical considerations of knowledge formation.Timo Jarvilehto1999-05-30Z2011-03-11T08:53:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/382This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3821999-05-30ZTip-of-the-Tongue Phenomena: An Introductory Phenomenological AnalysisThe issue of meaningful yet unexpressed background - to language, to our experiences of the body - is one whose exploration is still in its infancy. There are various aspects of "invisible," implicit, or background experiences which have been investigated from the viewpoints of phenomenology, cognitive psychology, and linguistics. I will claim that James, as explicated by Gurwitsch and others, has analyzed the phenomenon of fringes in such a way as to provide a structural framework from which to investigate and better understand those ideas or concepts that are unexpressed, particularly those experienced in the sense of being sought-after. I will consider Johnsons conception of the image-schematic gestalt (ISG) as a way of bridging the descriptive gap between phenomenology and cognitive psychology. Starting from an analysis of the fringes, I will turn to a consideration of the of tip-of-tongue (TOT) state, as a kind of feeling-of-knowing (FOK) state, from a variety of approaches, focusing mainly on cognitive psychology and phenomenology. I will then integrate a phenomenological analysis of these experiences, from the James/Gurwitsch structural viewpoint, with a cognitive/phenomenological analysis in terms of ISGs; and further integrate that with a cognitive/functional analysis of consciousness. I will employ this synthesis of three viewpoints to explore the thesis that the TOT state and similar experiences may relate to the gestalt nature of schemas as well as to particular cues, and may thus be experienced as an aspect of the continuum to the general background to all our conscious experiences.Steven R. Brown2000-01-28Z2011-03-11T08:54:20Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/840This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8402000-01-28ZTowards a Descriptive Model of Agent Strategy SearchIt is argued that due to the complexity of most economic phenomena, the chances of deriving correct models from a priori principles are small. Instead are more descriptive approach to modelling should be pursued. Agent-based modelling is characterised as a step in this direction. However many agent-based models use off-the-shelf algorithms from computer science without regard to their descriptive accuracy. This paper attempts an agent model that describes the behaviour of subjects reported by Joep Sonnemans as accurately as possible. It takes a structure that is compatible with current thinking cognitive science and explores the nature of the agent processes that then match the behaviour of the subjects. This suggests further modelling improvements and experiments.B. Edmonds2007-02-19Z2011-03-11T08:56:46Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5404This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/54042007-02-19ZTrust Related to Certain Mind ProcessesThe research is sequel to the former researches the
purpose of which is to inquire the mind processes
from a different angle with newer concepts than used
to do. The focus of the research was an attempt to
answer the question: How does trust relate to the
mind processes under scrutiny? Data and the dyads
were obtained from an information competition through
a video recorder. N was 56 or 14 contests were
recorded. Reliability of observation proved to be
0.91 as assessed, sequentially. The overall
reliability was 0.93. The analysis of the process
based on the usual and dynamic probabilities of the
responses. The proper device of the analysis was
conditional probabilities between the bursts of the
processes. The results indicate that trust is the
shifter, especially the social shifter that keeps the
transmuters of the dyads in going. Furthermore, trust
is the intervening relational process between gender,
and former experience and the transmuter that
produces and works up the mind processes. Thus the
shifter much regulates what kinds of mindamics grow
and develop when persons are in the minimum social
group, at least, under these research circumstances.
1I gratefully acknowledge the help of John G. Holmes
and Jeremy Dugash in preparation of this manuscript.Ed.D. Raimo J Laasonen06-27-1944-10722012-04-25T13:04:02Z2012-04-25T13:04:02Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8162This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/81622012-04-25T13:04:02ZUnderstanding the dental need and care during pregnancy: a reviewThis paper reviews the oral and dental lesions that are seen during pregnancy. Trimester approach should be adopted in the management of the pregnant patients. A good dental preventive programme is essential. The significance of prescribing fluoride supplements and the use of dental radiography during pregnancy is also briefly reviewed.Dr. W.C. Ngeowngeowy@um.edu.myW. L. Chai2001-11-24Z2011-03-11T08:54:50Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1919This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/19192001-11-24ZA Unifying Field in Logics: Neutrosophic Logic.The author makes an introduction to non-standard analysis, then extends the dialectics to neutrosophy which became a new branch of philosophy. This new concept helps in generalizing the intuitionistic, paraconsistent, dialetheism, fuzzy logic to neutrosophic logic which is the first logic that comprises paradoxes and distinguishes between relative and absolute truth. Similarly, the fuzzy set is generalized to neutrosophic set. Also, the classical and imprecise probabilities are generalized to neutrosophic probability.Florentin Smarandache2005-03-06Z2011-03-11T08:55:51Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/4113This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/41132005-03-06ZUnreduced Dynamic Complexity, Causally Complete Ecology, and Realistic Transition to the Superior Level of LifeThe unreduced, universally nonperturbative analysis of a generic system of arbitrary interacting entities leads to the absolutely universal and reality-based concept of dynamic complexity expressing the qualitatively new phenomenon of dynamic multivaluedness of the emerging incompatible (redundant) versions of interaction results called system realisations. The obtained universal science of complexity transforms ecology, always dealing with irreducibly complex systems, to an "exact", causally complete science of civilisation development, essentially exceeding the dominating level of ill-founded empirical guesses or application of various existing imitations of "complexity", "chaoticity", "nonlinearity", etc., obtained within the basically unchanged, dynamically single-valued, perturbative reduction of the canonical, linear science. The rigorously substantiated, universal law of unreduced complexity conservation and development, or symmetry of complexity, being applied at the global scale of civilisation development, leads to the objectively justified conclusion about the necessity and reality of transition from today's "protective" ecology maintaining a "sustainable", but inevitable, destruction to the qualitatively new, creative ecology science and action based on the objective and universal criterion of progress (optimal growth of unreduced complexity-entropy), actively producing the man-made "SuperNature", and accompanied by the general, also objectively substantiated, ascent of civilisation to the next, superior level of complexity. The latter involves a qualitatively new type of human settlement, activity, and social structure, superior level of individual consciousness and complex-dynamic, self-developing, unrestricted creativity in all aspects of life, which is equivalent to the causally specified Noosphere and genuine sustainability.Andrei Kirilyuk1998-12-14Z2011-03-11T08:53:39Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/72This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/721998-12-14ZUsing spontaneous and induced mutations to genetically-dissect brain and behaviorReport on the First Brain Research Interactive Conference "Knockouts and Mutants, Genetically Dissecting Brain and Behavior". Held in San Diego, CA, USA; 4-6 November 1998.Wim E. Crusio1999-10-18Z2011-03-11T08:53:53Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/394This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3941999-10-18ZVisualizing practical knowledge: The Haughton-Mars ProjectTo improve how we envision knowledge, we must improve our ability to see knowledge in everyday life. That is, visualization is concerned not only with displaying facts and theories, but also with finding ways to express and relate tacit understanding. Such knowledge, although often referred to as "common," is not necessarily shared and may be distributed socially in choreographies for working togetherin the manner that a chef and a maitre dhôtel, who obviously possess very different skills, coordinate their work. Furthermore, non-verbal concepts cannot in principle be inventoried. Reifying practical knowledge is not a process of converting the implicit into the explicit, but pointing to what we know, showing its manifestations in our everyday life. To this end, I illustrate the study and reification of practical knowledge by examining the activities of a scientific expedition in the Canadian Arctica group of scientists preparing for a mission to MarsWilliam J. Clancey2000-06-15Z2011-03-11T08:53:53Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/408This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/4082000-06-15ZWeaving, Bending, Patching, Mending the Fabric of Reality: A Cognitive Science Perspective on Worldview InconsistencyIn order to become aware of inconsistencies, one must first construe of the world in a way that reflects its consistencies. This paper begins with a tentative model for how a set of discrete memories transforms into an interconnected worldview wherein relationships between memories are forged by way of abstractions. Inconsistencies prompt the invention of new abstractions. In regions of the conceptual network where inconsistencies abound, a cognitive analog of simulated annealing is in order; there is a willingness to question previous assumptionsto loosen conceptual relationshipsso as to let new concepts thoroughly percolate through the worldview and exert the needed revolutionary effect. In so doing there is a risk of assimilating dangerous concepts. Repression arrests the process by which dangerous thoughts infiltrate the conceptual network, and deception blocks thoughts that have already been assimilated. These forms of self-initiated worldview inconsistency may evoke feelings of fragmentation at the level of the individual or the society.Liane M. Gabora1999-10-08Z2011-03-11T08:54:03Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/549This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5491999-10-08ZWedding connectionist and algorithmic modelling towards forecasting Caulerpa taxifolia development in the north-western Mediterranean seaWe discuss the use of supervised neural networks as a metamodelling technique for discrete event stochastic simulation in order to reduce significantly the computational burden involved by discrete simulations. A sophisticated computer model, coupling a Geographical Information System with a stochastic discrete event simulator, has been developed to anticipate the propagation of the green alga {\em Caulerpa taxifolia} in the North-Western Mediterranean sea. The simulation model provides reliable predictions, a couple of years in advance, of: i) the local expansion patterns of the alga, ii) the increase of {\em C. taxifolia} biomass and iii), the covered surfaces. However because the algorithmic model accounts for spatial interactions and anthropic dispersion/activities such as eradication, introduction of specific predators etc., simulations are extremely time and memory consuming. Therefore, to reduce the computational burden, a neural network was successfully trained on artificially generated data provided by the simulation runs to provide accurate forecasts 12 years in advance along with associated confidence intervals. The ability of the neural networks to capture the underlying physics of the phenomena is clearly illustrated by several preliminary experiments on a large coastal area. The neural network is able to construct, on this site, estimates of the {\em Caulerpa taxifolia} expansion 12 years in advance in good agreement with the simulation trajectories.Alex AussemDavid. Hill2001-05-09Z2011-03-11T08:54:38Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1488This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/14882001-05-09ZThe What and Why of Binding: The Modeler's PerspectiveIn attempts to formulate a computational understanding of brain function,
one of the fundamental concerns is the data structure by which the brain
represents information. For many decades, a conceptual framework has
dominated the thinking of both brain modelers and neurobiologists. That
framework is referred to here as "classical neural networks." It is well
supported by experimental data, although it may be incomplete. A
characterization of this framework will be offered in the next section.
Difficulties in modeling important functional aspects of the brain on the
basis of classical neural networks alone have led to the recognition that
another, general mechanism must be invoked to explain brain function. That
mechanism I call "binding." Binding by neural signal synchrony had been
mentioned several times in the liter ature (Lege´ndy, 1970; Milner, 1974)
before it was fully formulated as a general phenomenon (von der Malsburg,
1981). Although experimental evidence for neural syn chrony was soon found,
the idea was largely ignored for many years. Only recently has it become a
topic of animated discussion. In what follows, I will summarize the nature
and the roots of the idea of binding, especially of temporal binding, and
will discuss some of the objec tions raised against it.
Christoph von der Malsburg1999-06-27Z2011-03-11T08:53:52Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/385This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/3851999-06-27ZWhat do mathematicians teach us about the World ? An anthropological perspectiveThe activity of mathematicians is examined here in an anthropological perspective. The task effectively performed reveals that, independently of their own representation, mathematicians produce in actuality a « virtual physics ». The principles of demonstrative proof as described and assessed by Aristotle, are first introduced, displaying a latitude in the demonstrative methodology open to mathematicians, with modes of proof ranging from the compelling to the plausible only. Even such leeway in the matter of proof has been felt at times by mathematicians as an intolerable constraint. The proof by reductio ad absurdum is shown to be by-passable and effectively by-passed by mathematicians. The calculus is examined which Morris Kline characterized both as « the most original and most fruitful concept in all of mathematics » and being plagued by a lack of mathematical rigor. The reason for this is that the world in its very build forced the calculus to be what it became, at times in contradiction with the mathematical code of practice. The mathematician enters the world of mathematics armed with his intuition of how the world at large operates. This he imports within mathematics and designs mathematical objects with an in-built « virtually physical » plausibility. The culture around him is impatient with mathematics which do not find their way to providing models. A double system of constraints, both inner and outer, contribute at making mathematics a « virtual physics ».Paul Jorion2001-01-18Z2011-03-11T08:54:28Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1210This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/12102001-01-18ZWhat the liar paradox can reveal about the structure of our mindsIn human consciousness perceptions are distinct or atomistic events despite being perceived by an apparently undivided inner observer. This paper applies both classical (Boolean) and quantum logic to analysis of the Liar paradox which is taken as a typical example of a self-referential negation in the perception space of an undivided observer. The conception of self-referential paradoxes is a unique ability of the human mind still lacking an explanation on the basis of logic. It will be shown that both classical and quantum logics fail to resolve the paradox because of the particle-like (atomistic) nature of physical events in the moments of perception. The atomistic reality is the only one observed in human consciousness even if, as has been claimed by a number of authors, consciousness arises from a quantum mechanical superposition. However, a computational solution of the paradox can be achieved by embedding quantum registers in a fractal space. The truth values, or q-bit
eigenstates, of the separate parts of the paradox correspond to sub-spaces of the fractal. Since a fractal contains the whole in each part a self-referential negation emerges as the experienced concept in each sub-space. Fractal quantum computation is realized by a cNOT-operation with percolation of the control q-bits into sub-spaces of a nascent fractal. In other words, atomism cannot cope with a self-referential paradox but quantum logic gates embedded in a fractal structure can cope. Remarkably, it will be shown that a mind operating on these algorithmic principles will not inevitably be limited by Turing's halting theorem. I suggest a physical mechanism that can deal with our experience of self-referential paradox. Because it is also shown that this cannot be achieved by any previously suggested classical or quantum mechanical operation, the newly proposed mechanism provides a better model than others for an important aspect of the structure of our minds.
Erhard Bieberich2002-04-12Z2011-03-11T08:54:55Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/2173This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/21732002-04-12ZWhen marking tone reduces fluency: an orthography experiment in CameroonShould an alphabetic orthography for a tone language include tone marks? Opinion and
practice are divided along three lines: zero marking, phonemic marking and various reduced
marking schemes. This paper examines the success of phonemic tone marking for Dschang, a
Grassfields Bantu language which uses tone to distinguish lexical items and some grammatical
constructions. Participants with a variety of ages and educational backgrounds, and having
different levels of exposure to the orthography were tested on location in the Western
Province of Cameroon. All but one had attended classes on tone marking. Participants read
texts which were marked and unmarked for tone, then added tone marks to the unmarked
texts. Analysis shows that tone marking degrades reading fluency and does not help to resolve
tonally ambiguous words. Experienced writers attain an accuracy score of 83.5% in adding
tone marks to a text, while inexperienced writers score a mere 53%, which is not much better
than chance. The experiment raises serious doubts about the suitability of the phonemic
method of marking tone for languages having widespread tone sandhi effects, and lends
support to the notion that a writing system should have `fixed word images'. A critical review
of other experimental work on African tone orthography lays the groundwork for the
experiment, and contributes to the establishment of a uniform experimental paradigm. Steven Bird1999-12-03Z2011-03-11T08:54:20Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/838This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8381999-12-03ZWhen Perception Becomes ConsciousThe study of preconscious versus conscious processing has an extensive history in cognitive psychology, dating back to the writings of William James. Much of the experimental work on this issue has focused on perception, conceived of as input analysis, and on the relation of consciousness to attentional processing. The present paper examines when input analysis becomes conscious from the perspectives of cognitive modelling, methodology, and a more detailed understanding of what is meant by "conscious processing." Current evidence suggests that perception becomes conscious at a late-arising stage of focal-attentive processing concerned with information integration and dissemination. Reliable criteria for determining when perception becomes conscious combine the evidence of "first-person," phenomenological reports with "third-person" functional dissociations between preconscious and conscious processing. There are three, distinct senses in which a process may be said to be "conscious." It might be "conscious" (a) in the sense that one is conscious of the process, (b) in the sense that the operation of the process is accompanied by consciousness (of its results) and (c) in the sense that consciousness enters into or causally influences the process. Consciousness of familiar stimuli, rather than entering into input analysis, appears to follow it, in human information processing. Processes closely associated with the appearance of consciousness such as information integration and dissemination appear to operate unconsciously. Consequently, perception appears to be "conscious" only in sense (b).M Velmans2002-08-12Z2011-03-11T08:54:20Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/848This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/8482002-08-12ZWhy Grandmothers May Need Large Brains. (Commentary on Skoyles on Brain Expertise)Skoyles's case against human brain size being related to IQ is strong; but his case in favor of its being related to expertise is weak. I propose that the explanation for the evolutionary expansion of the human brain in fact lies far away, in the need to have a brain that could continue to function into old age.Nicholas Humphrey2001-06-26Z2011-03-11T08:54:43Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1648This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/16482001-06-26ZWhy I believe intelligence can be measured by IQ tests, and how universities could make use of themCurricula should be matched to capabilities.Stevan Harnad2007-11-13T01:02:44Z2011-03-11T08:57:00Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/5810This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/58102007-11-13T01:02:44ZWhy Neural Correlates Of Consciousness Are Fine,
But Not Enough
The existence of neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) is not enough for philosophical purposes. On the other hand, there's more to NCC than meets the sceptic's eye.
(I) NCC are useful for a better understanding of conscious experience, for instance: (1) NCC are helpful to explain phenomenological features of consciousness – e.g., dreaming. (2) NCC can account for phenomenological opaque facts – e.g., the temporal structure of consciousness. (3) NCC reveal properties and functions of consciousness which cannot be elucidated either by introspective phenomenology or by psychological experiments alone – e.g., vision.
(II) There are crucial problems and shortcomings of NCC: (1) Correlation implies neither causation nor identity. (2) There are limitations of empirical access due to the problem of other minds and the problem of self-deception, and (3) due to the restrictions provided by inter- and intraindividual variations. (4) NCC cannot be catched by neuroscience alone because of the externalistic content of representations. Therefore, NCC are not sufficient for a naturalistic theory of mind, (5) nor are they necessary because of the possibility of multiple realization.
(III) Nevertheless, NCC are relevant and important for the mind-body problem: (1) NCC reveal features that are necessary at least for behavioral manifestations of human consciousness. (2) But NCC are compatible with very different proposals for a solution of the mind-body problem. This seems to be both advantageous and detrimental. (3) NCC restrict nomological identity accounts. (4) The investigation of NCC can refute empirical arguments for interactionism as a case study of John Eccles' dualistic proposals will show. (5) The discoveries of NCC cannot establish a naturalistic theory of mind alone, for which, e.g., a principle of supervenience and a further condition – and therefore philosophical arguments – are required.
Ruediger Vaasruediger.vaas@t-online.de2001-02-28Z2011-03-11T08:54:35Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1327This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/13272001-02-28ZWilliam James and the Evolution of ConsciousnessDespite having been relegated to the realm of superstition during the dominant years of behaviourism, the investigation and discussion of consciousness has again become scientifically defensible. However, attempts at describing animal consciousness continue to be criticised for lacking independent criteria that identify the presence or absence of the phenomenon. Over one hundred years ago William James recognised that mental traits are subject to the same evolutionary processes as are physical characteristics and must therefore be represented in differing levels of complexity throughout the animal kingdom. James's proposals with regard to animal consciousness are outlined and followed by a discussion of three classes of animal consciousness derived from empirical research. These classes are presented to defend both James's proposals and the position that a theory of animal consciousness can be scientifically supported. It is argued that by using particular behavioural expressions to index consciousness and by providing empirical tests by which to elicit these behavioural expressions a scientifically defensible theory of animal consciousness can be developed. Mark NielsenR. H. Day