Cognitive Ontology Research Articles

Advancing mechanistic explanations through natural and artificial embodied cognitive systems.

Mougenot and Matheson propose that mechanistic models can explain behavior by describing the complex interactions among components of the brain, body, and environment as an integrated system, which aligns with embodied cognition. However, we suggest incorporating cognitive ontology theory and addressing degeneracy and neuronal reuse. We also recommend studying natural embodied cognition through artificial systems to develop a comprehensive mechanistic framework.

Unveiling the core functional networks of cognition: An ontology-guided machine learning approach

Deciphering the functional architecture that underpins diverse cognitive functions is fundamental quest in neuroscience. In this study, we employed an innovative machine learning framework that integrated cognitive ontology with functional connectivity analysis to identify brain networks essential for cognition. We identified a core assembly of functional connectomes, primarily located within the association cortex, which showed superior predictive performance compared to two conventional methods widely employed in previous research across various cognitive domains. Our approach achieved a mean prediction accuracy of 0.13 across 16 cognitive tasks, including working memory, reading comprehension, and sustained attention, outperforming the traditional methods' accuracy of 0.08. In contrast, our method showed limited predictive power for sensory, motor, and emotional functions, with a mean prediction accuracy of 0.03 across 9 relevant tasks, slightly lower than the traditional methods' accuracy of 0.04. These cognitive connectomes were further characterized by distinctive patterns of resting-state functional connectivity, structural connectivity via white matter tracts, and gene expression, highlighting their neurogenetic underpinnings. Our findings reveal a domain-general functional network fingerprint that pivotal to cognition, offering a novel computational approach to explore the neural foundations of cognitive abilities.

The New Mechanistic Approach and Cognitive Ontology—Or: What Role do (Neural) Mechanisms Play in Cognitive Ontology?

Cognitive ontology has become a popular topic in philosophy, cognitive psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. At its center is the question of which cognitive capacities should be included in the ontology of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience. One common strategy for answering this question is to look at brain structures and determine the cognitive capacities for which they are responsible. Some authors interpret this strategy as a search for neural mechanisms, as understood by the so-called new mechanistic approach. In this article, I will show that this new mechanistic answer is confronted with what I call the triviality problem. A discussion of this problem will show that one cannot derive a meaningful cognitive ontology from neural mechanisms alone. Nonetheless, neural mechanisms play a crucial role in the discovery of a cognitive ontology because they are epistemic proxies for best systematizations.

Kinds in the cognitive sciences: Reply to Weiskopf, Sullivan, and Robins

In this response to three critiques of my book, Cognitive ontology, I expand on some of its main themes. First, I demarcate the domain of cognition to support my claim that it is properly investigated from Marr's computational level. Then, I defend the claim that cognitive kinds ought to be individuated externalistically, by contrast with neural kinds, which are often individuated internalistically. This implies that the relationship between the cognitive sciences is one of delivering mutual constraints, which is a more productive research strategy than the search for “neural correlates” of cognitive constructs.

Who's in and who's out of the cognitive kinding game? Comments on Muhammad Ali Khalidi's Cognitive ontology: Taxonomic practices in the mind‐brain sciences

Muhammad Ali Khalidi contends that because cognitive science casts a wider net than neuroscience in searching for the causes of cognition, it is in the superior position to discover “real” cognitive kinds. I argue that while Khalidi identifies appropriate norms for individuating cognitive kinds, these norms ground his characterization of taxonomic practices in cognitive science, rather than the other way around. If we instead treat Khalidi's norms not as descriptively accurate characterizations of taxonomic practices in cognitive science, but as a set of best practices for kinding cognition, is cognitive science in and neuroscience definitively out of the cognitive kinding game?

A dataset of cognitive ontology for neuroimaging studies of self-reference

Self-reference (or self-referential processing) refers to the cognitive processes underlying self-related information processing. It is widely studied in cognitive neuroscience to better understand the neural basis of self-cognition of human beings. However, does the term “self-reference” mean the same psychological processes across studies? This fundamental question has been largely disregarded and has not received the attention it deserves. To fill the gap, we built an ontological dataset based on neuroimaging studies of self-reference. We searched the literature and screened the articles following a standard protocol. Then, two independent coders extracted data and standardized operationalizations of self-reference on both behavioral and neural levels, resulting in a cognitive ontological dataset for neuroimaging studies of self-reference. This dataset consists of operationalizations of self-reference (in CSV file format) from 66 neuroimaging articles, coordinates data of brain areas activated by self-reference (in BrainMap format), and corresponding codebooks. The inter-rater reliability analysis indicates that the coding process exhibits an exceptional level of quality. Compared with automatic meta-analytical platforms, i.e., Neurosynth, the current dataset provides a fine-grained granularity in article selection, which allows the comparison of brain regions activated by different operationalizations of self-reference. This dataset lays a foundation for the understanding of neural mechanisms underlying self-cognition. It may also facilitate the study of cognitive ontology by serving as an exemplary model for the creation of similar metascience datasets.

Cognitivism ageing: The Alzheimer conundrum as switched ontology & the potential for a new materialist dementia

Following recent regulatory approvals for anti-Alzheimer's monoclonal antibodies, this paper considers the contemporary role of cognitivism in defining the ontological commitments of dementia research, as well as movements away from cognitivism under the umbrella of 4E cognitive science. 4E cognitive theories, extending cognition into bodies, their environs, and active relations between the two, share potentially fruitful affinities with new materialisms which focus on the co-constitution of matter in intra-action. These semi-overlapping conceptual positions furnish some opportunity for an ontological alternative to longstanding cognitivist commitments, particularly to the isolated brain as a material catalyst for commercial interventions. After outlining mainstream cognitivism and its shortcomings, I explore 4E and new materialism as possibly transformative conceptual schemas for dementia research, a field for which cognitivist imaginings of cognitive decline in later life have profound and often regrettable ramifications. To realise this new materialist dementia, I sketch out a cognitive ontology based on Barad's agential realism. This facilitates a reassessment of the biggest conundrum in dementia research – the lack of neat correlation between (apparently material) neuropathology and (apparently immaterial) cognitive impairment – alongside the continued failure of efforts to develop effective interventions. It also gives social researchers working on cognitive decline in later life an opportunity to reappraise the nature of social science as a response to such phenomena. If cognition and cognitive ageing are reimagined as an emergent characteristic of intra-acting matter, then new materialist social science might be at least as conducive to salutogenic interventions as the neuropsychiatric technoscience that dominates the contemporary dementia research economy despite continual failures. I argue that a new materialist cognitive ontology could help us think beyond an ageing cognitivism and, by extension, beyond the Alzheimer conundrum.

Multidifferential Pluralism as a Fundamental Principle of Literary Theory and Criticism

The present study is a synthesis of diverse poststructural theories of the identity subject. There is presented and analyzed the new „identity geography”, from the advanced ideas of the feminist and gender studies until the lesbian and gay theory, queer theory or postcolonial theory. There are also taken into consideration the possibilities of the identity defining from the perspective of the cyborg, transsexual, liminal, excentric, nomad and situated subject. The other perspective is that of the hyperconstructivism, which advances ideas for rebuilding the subject in a new cognitive ontology.

The concepts of apperception and reflection in Kant and the concept of reflection in Husserl

The article considers reflection as a method and condition of the transcendental philosophy of Kant and Husserl. At the beginning, the author refers to Kant's predecessors who used the term reflection (Wolf, Baumgartner) and concludes that Kant, when referring to reflection, rather adheres to the tradition laid down by Leibniz. Based on the text of the “Critique of Pure Reason”, the article argues that it is with the help of reflection that the formation of a priori categories and a priori synthetic principles can be explained. The author distinguishes between reflection and the transcendental unity of apperception and examines, within the framework of the phenomenological interpretation of the “Critique of Pure Reason”, the role of this unity in the predilection of sensory diversity. The article shows the continuity in the understanding of reflection between transcendental phenomenology and Kant's philosophy. In Husserl's philosophy, reflection as a method is associated with reduction and contemplation. The author dwells on the features of the use of reflection in Husserl's studies, which include, first of all, the temporal language of description and the dependence of reflection on the phenomena to which it is directed. Orlova Yulia Olegovna (1970 2011) – is a Russian philosopher, Ph.D., in 1998 - 2011 worked at the Department of Ontology and Theory of Cognition of the Faculty of Philosophy of St. Petersburg State University.

Emotive lexicon of the political narrative: Ukraine and the West in Chinese media

This study, done within the framework of political and cognitive linguistics, discusses emotively loaded language of political media narratives that serve as the major manipulative tool with which propaganda exerts ideological impact on the public. Among various linguistic devices employed in molding the political narrative, a conspicuous role is played by emotively loaded lexicon that is in focus of this inquiry. It aims to expose the contribution of emotively loaded words into featuring a media image of the war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February, 2022. As a result of ideological confrontation between the adversaries and between their allies, this image, targeting home audiences in Russia and Ukraine, as well as foreign audiences, is framed as either pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian, with the respective emotive assessments being mostly contrastive. Our study considers a pro-Russian image of the war shaped by the English version of The Global Times popular tabloid that belongs to Chinese state media. The dataset includes the articles depicting the Russia-Ukraine war in the context of international relations. The articles were published during June, 2022, three months after the beginning of Russia’s military assault. In the study, the analysis of emotive lexicon grounds on a cognitive ontology of the RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR image. Such ontology, defined as event-focused, allows for structuring information about the event proper and its participants. Their verbally crafted ‘portraits’ are made salient through the scope of employed emotive expressions, which facilitates priming and entrenchment of the intended biased image in the reader’s mind.

Ukraine and the West in pro-Russia Chinese media: A methodology for the analysis of multimodal political narratives

This study represents a research project done at the crossroads of political, multimodal and cognitive linguistics. In focus is the Russia-Ukraine war featured in March – May, 2022 by the English edition of the Global Times, a Chinese media outlet, one of the voices of pro-Russia Chinese state propaganda. The analyzed articles contain political cartoons and thus can be defined as multimodal texts. Together, they mold a narrative, or ‘story’ addressed to international readers and intended to shape their worldview beneficial for Russia. Out study of this narrative aims to reconstruct the mental image it portrays and to expose the ways in which the verbal and visual modes interact to implant this image into the readers’ minds. To fulfil this task, we propose a cognitive linguistic methodology which, applied algorithmically, enables building cognitive ontologies that structure information rendered verbally and visually. The constituents of each ontology have factual and emotive salience, dependent of the number of descriptions provided by empirical texts. We demonstrate how an overlap of the ontologies boosts salience of the key emotively connoted message targeted at the audience. In the study, the interplay between verbal and visual modes in individual texts is characterized in terms of accentuation, elaboration, extension, questioning, and combining considered as universal ways of ‘stretching’ information, which are trackable far beyond the metaphoric domain where they were previously identified by Lakoff and Turner (1989).

Cognitive ontology and the search for neural mechanisms: three foundational problems

The central task of cognitive neuroscience to map cognitive capacities to neural mechanisms faces three interlocking conceptual problems that together frame the problem of cognitive ontology. First, they must establish which tasks elicit which cognitive capacities, and specifically when different tasks elicit the same capacity. To address this operationalization problem, scientists often assess whether the tasks engage the same neural mechanisms. But to determine whether mechanisms are of the same or different kinds, we need to solve the abstraction problem by determining which mechanistic differences are and are not relevant, and also the boundary problem by distinguishing the mechanism from its background conditions. Solving these problems, in turn, requires understanding how cognitive capacities are elicited in tasks. These three problems, which have been noted and discussed elsewhere in the literature, together form a ‘cycle of kinds’ that frames the central problem-space of cognitive ontology. We describe this cycle to clarify the intellectual challenges facing the cognitive ontologist and to reveal the kind of iterative process by which ontological revision in cognitive neuroscience is likely to unfold.

Can predictive processing explain self-deception?

The prediction error minimization framework (PEM) denotes a family of views that aim at providing a unified theory of perception, cognition, and action. In this paper, I discuss some of the theoretical limitations of PEM. It appears that PEM cannot provide a satisfactory explanation of motivated reasoning, as instantiated in phenomena such as self-deception, because its cognitive ontology does not have a separate category for motivational states such as desires. However, it might be thought that this objection confuses levels of explanation. Self-deception is a personal level phenomenon, while PEM offers subpersonal explanations of psychological abilities. Thus, the paper examines how subpersonal explanations couched in the PEM framework can be thought of as related to personal level explanations underlying self-deception. In this regard, three views on the relation between personal and subpersonal explanations are investigated: the autonomist, the functionalist, and the co-evolutionary perspective. I argue that, depending on which view of the relation between the personal and subpersonal is adopted, the PEM paradigm faces a dilemma: either its explanatory ambitions should be reduced to the subpersonal domain, or it cannot provide a satisfactory account of motivated reasoning as instantiated in self-deception.

On the connection between social and epistemological aspects of the civilizational approach

The article is a review of the monograph of the professors of the Department of Ontology and Theory of Cognition of the RUDN University V.M. Naidysh and O.V. Naidysh Civilization and Rationality. Essays on the Philosophy of Mythology (Moscow: Rusains, 2020. 286 p.) which explores social-philosophical and epistemological aspects of the civilizational approach. The issues of rationality and civilization are connected by the theory of consciousness presented as a form of reflection of reality by the active subject included in the networks of (direct and indirect) communication systems, as an integrator of cognitive activity, sensory-emotional experience of the world and volitional intentionality of the subject. The review focuses on two civilizational paradigms - civilization as an ethnosociocultural community and civilization as an institutionalized society that developed during the ‘Neolithic revolution’. The monograph analyzes a wide range of issues: theoretical-methodological prerequisites of models of the historical process, origins of the civilizational model of history, concepts of civilization in the 19th - early 21st century, the structure of the foundations of civilization, the role of rationalism and myth-making in the life of civilization, processes of rationalization and derationalization of culture, the genesis of thinking, the nature of the archetypes of culture, the formation of rationalism in the cultures of the Ancient East, concepts of barbarism and neo-barbarism, etc. The monograph also examines the debatable issue of possible prospects of civilization: among the models of post-civilization, transhumanism seems to be the most popular (the program of the artificial transformation of the natural-biological foundations of man). The authors call for a balanced and critical perception of transhumanism, because its most radical, extreme versions are a contemporary form of ‘social alchemy’.

Comprehensive decoding mental processes from Web repositories of functional brain images

Associating brain systems with mental processes requires statistical analysis of brain activity across many cognitive processes. These analyses typically face a difficult compromise between scope—from domain-specific to system-level analysis—and accuracy. Using all the functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) statistical maps of the largest data repository available, we trained machine-learning models that decode the cognitive concepts probed in unseen studies. For this, we leveraged two comprehensive resources: NeuroVault—an open repository of fMRI statistical maps with unconstrained annotations—and Cognitive Atlas—an ontology of cognition. We labeled NeuroVault images with Cognitive Atlas concepts occurring in their associated metadata. We trained neural networks to predict these cognitive labels on tens of thousands of brain images. Overcoming the heterogeneity, imbalance and noise in the training data, we successfully decoded more than 50 classes of mental processes on a large test set. This success demonstrates that image-based meta-analyses can be undertaken at scale and with minimal manual data curation. It enables broad reverse inferences, that is, concluding on mental processes given the observed brain activity.

The spiralling of the securitisation of migration in the EU: from the management of a ‘crisis’ to a governance of human mobility?

ABSTRACT This special issue illustrates that the securitisation of migration is not a linear process but a spiralling phenomenon, which involves different actors, and their policies, practices and narratives, in a spiralling progression that both self-fulfils and reinforces migration-security nexus’ dynamics. By proposing a cognitive ontology to understand the social construction of migration as a security threat, the introduction to this special issue proposes a categorisation of cognitions, mandates, constituencies and interests of state and non-state actors. Through a dichotomisation of these categories, it is possible to clarify how and why they either socially construct or deconstruct migration as a threat. In particular, the special issue identifies in prejudicial cognitions one of the main reasons for which a variety of actors enact practices and produce narratives that contribute to both securitising migration and reinforcing its nexus with crime, and the consequent social construction of ‘migration crises’. The different contributions to this special issue prove the arguments here exposed with a different analysis of how migration has been dealt with at either governmental or non-governmental levels.

Pierre Duhem and the Continuous Development of Science

When attempting to assess what history of science, doubtless an important element of our culture, owes to the French philosopher and scientist Pierre Duhem, one has to emphasise the critical role he played in rethinking the world outlook inherited from the preceding times and in developing a new one more apt to contemporary science. This analysis draws on such key Duhem’s writings as «The World System» («Le système du monde») and «Studies on Leonardo da Vinci» («Études sur Léonard de Vinci»). Two Duhem’s theses deserve particular attention. One is his assertion that Christianity (and the Catholic Church for that) did not impede, but rather contributed to the development of science having dispensed with cosmological assumptions of Greek Paganism incompatible with contemporary science. Secondly, Duhem argues that intuitions to pave way to the scientific revolution were first advocated by such Sorbonne Scholastics as Jean Buridan and Nicholas Oresme. It is noteworthy that the French scientist clearly underestimates the contribution of non-French thinkers to the emerging set of cultural axioms. Duhem’s new ontology of cognition is closely related to the ideas of new epistemology. Viewing evolution of science as a gradual continuous process, he endorsed the holist idea that isolated scientific propositions could neither be verified nor falsified. The truth of any proposition is inseparable from the truth of the system of hypotheses as a whole. Hence science progresses not by rejecting old theories, but by modifying them: in due course old concepts give way to new ones. This topical assumption that progress of science is to be viewed and understood in its specific socio-cultural context delineates the principle on which the answer to the no less topical question of the philosophy of culture, viz. why modern science has emerged in Europe rather than elsewhere, is to be based on.

Arcesilaus and the Ontology of Stoic Cognition

Arcesilaus and the Ontology of Stoic Cognition

Ontological Dimensions of Cognitive-Neural Mappings.

The growing literature reporting results of cognitive-neural mappings has increased calls for an adequate organizing ontology, or taxonomy, of these mappings. This enterprise is non-trivial, as relevant dimensions that might contribute to such an ontology are not yet agreed upon. We propose that any candidate dimensions should be evaluated on their ability to explain observed differences in functional neuroimaging activation patterns. In this study, we use a large sample of task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (task-fMRI) results and a data-driven strategy to identify these dimensions. First, using a data-driven dimension reduction approach and multivariate distance matrix regression (MDMR), we quantify the variance among activation maps that is explained by existing ontological dimensions. We find that 'task paradigm' categories explain more variance among task-activation maps than other dimensions, including latent cognitive categories. Surprisingly, 'study ID', or the study from which each activation map was reported, explained close to 50% of the variance in activation patterns. Using a clustering approach that allows for overlapping clusters, we derived data-driven latent activation states, associated with re-occurring configurations of the canonical frontoparietal, salience, sensory-motor, and default mode network activation patterns. Importantly, with only four data-driven latent dimensions, one can explain greater variance among activation maps than all conventional ontological dimensions combined. These latent dimensions may inform a data-driven cognitive ontology, and suggest that current descriptions of cognitive processes and the tasks used to elicit them do not accurately reflect activation patterns commonly observed in the human brain.

The Active Learner’s Construction-Combinatory Thesaurus: user-driven principles of compiling (a cognitive linguistic approach)

This article discusses the design of a new type of dictionaries, the Active Learner’s Construction-Combinatory Thesaurus (ALCCT) intended for adult learners of the second (foreign) language. The ALCCT is an ideographic dictionary where phrases, understood as instantiations of constructions, are arranged in accordance with the cognitive ontology of a particular conceptual thematic field. As such, the ALCCT is a project compatible with cognitive lexicography, a contemporary branch of dictionary-making that adopts the findings of cognitive science, cognitive linguistics in particular. The article proposes a cognitive profile of the dictionary’s target user, and makes it a departure point in elaborating the principles of compiling the ALCCT. They are defined as the principles of data selection, arrangement, and application. Data selection regards their thematic and formal coherence, their authenticity, and their prominence, or frequency. Data arrangement implies their relational coherence, and their elaboration. Relational coherence is realized through the lexicographic code, or the dictionary’s overall design that develops at three hierarchical levels: those of macrostructure (a conceptual ontology of the theme), mediostructure (the key words evolving into phrasal sets), and microstructure (description of phrasal lemmas). Elaboration of the data is provided via the overarching structure mapped onto the three hierarchical structures of the lexicographic code, and concerned with etymological, cultural, grammatical, and phraseological (metaphorical) extensions. Data application reaches out to the communicative situations in which the ALCCT’s resources can be used.