Nature Of Mental Representations Research Articles

Swampman, teleosemantics and kind essences

One powerful and influential approach to mental representation analyses representation in terms of biological functions, and biological functions in terms of histories of natural selection. This “teleosemantic” package, however, faces a familiar challenge. Surely representation depends only on the present-day structures of cognitive systems, and not on their historical provenance. “Swampman” drives the point home. Suppose a bolt of lightning creates an intrinsic duplicate of a human being in a steamy tropic swamp; will not this creature be representing its surroundings, despite its lack of any selectional history? In this paper I shall answer this challenge by showing how a proper appreciation of the structure of natural kinds in general, and of mental representation in particular, implies that selectional histories are indeed built into the nature of mental representation. In particular, I shall address a recent argument by Peter Schulte against this general line of argument.

Predictive minds and small-scale models: Kenneth Craik’s contribution to cognitive science

I identify three lessons from Kenneth Craik’s landmark book “The Nature of Explanation” for contemporary debates surrounding the existence, extent, and nature of mental representation: first, an account of mental representations as neural structures that function analogously to public models; second, an appreciation of prediction as the central component of intelligence in demand of such models; and third, a metaphor for understanding the brain as an engineer, not a scientist. I then relate these insights to discussions surrounding the representational status of predictive processing – which, I argue, provides a contemporary vindication of Craik’s extremely prescient “hypothesis on the nature of thought.”

Wolff, Baumgarten, and the Technical Idiom of Post-Leibnizian Philosophy of Mind

Philosophers after Leibniz used a technical idiom to classify and explain the nature of mental content. Substantive philosophical claims were formulated in terms of this vocabulary, including claims about the nature of mental representations, concepts, unconscious mental content, and consciousness. Despite its importance, the origin and development of this vocabulary is insufficiently well understood. More specifically, interpreters have failed to recognize the existence of two distinct and influential versions of the post-Leibnizian idiom. These competing formulations used the same technical terms and taxonomic relations but assigned different connotations to those terms and employed different criteria for their application. This paper explains the two most influential versions of the post-Leibnizian idiom.

The root of ruthless

Linguistic variation between individuals must be linked to how linguistic material is mentally represented. Therefore, by examining individual variation, light can be shed on the nature of mental representation itself. This paper presents an individual differences study of semi-opaque derivations (e.g. ruthless) to establish whether their representations are mentally associated to those of fully segmentable forms with the same suffix (e.g. sightless). This way, a prediction of connectionist and exemplar models of morphology is tested, namely that to language users semi-opaque forms are likely to retain some degree of internal complexity, despite the fact that they are not segmentable. Using corpus data, it is demonstrated that individuals who rely more heavily on the segmentable forms are also more likely to use the semi-opaque forms. This pattern in the variation across individuals indicates that semi-opaque derivations are not represented independently of the derivational paradigm from which they historically derive.

A rational analysis of the approximate number system.

It is well-known in numerical cognition that higher numbers are represented with less absolute fidelity than lower numbers, often formalized as a logarithmic mapping. Previous derivations of this psychological law have worked by assuming that relative change in physical magnitude is the key psychologically-relevant measure (Fechner, 1860; Sun et al., 2012; Portugal & Svaiter, Minds and Machines, 21(1), 73-81, 2011). Ideally, however, this property of psychological scales would be derived from more general, independent principles. This paper shows that a logarithmic number line is the one which minimizes the error between input and representation relative to the probability that subjects would need to represent each number. This need probability is measured here through natural language and matches the form of need probabilities found in other literatures. The derivation does not presuppose anything like Weber's law and makes minimal assumptions about both the nature of internal representations and the form of the mapping. More generally, the results prove in a general setting that the optimal psychological scale will change with the square root of the probability of each input. For stimuli that follow a power-law need distribution this approach recovers either a logarithmic or power-law psychophysical mapping (Stevens, 1957, 1961, 1975).

Neural correlates of processing “self-conscious” vs. “basic” emotions

Self-conscious emotions are prevalent in our daily lives and play an important role in both normal and pathological behavior. Despite their immense significance, the neural substrates that are involved in the processing of such emotions are surprisingly under-studied. In light of this, we conducted an fMRI study in which participants thought of various personal events which elicited feelings of negative and positive self-conscious (i.e., guilt, pride) or basic (i.e., anger, joy) emotions. We performed a conjunction analysis to investigate the neural correlates associated with processing events that are related to self-conscious vs. basic emotions, irrespective of valence. The results show that processing self-conscious emotions resulted in activation within frontal areas associated with self-processing and self-control, namely, the mPFC extending to the dACC, and within the lateral-dorsal prefrontal cortex. Processing basic emotions resulted in activation throughout relatively phylogenetically-ancient regions of the cortex, namely in visual and tactile processing areas and in the insular cortex. Furthermore, self-conscious emotions differentially activated the mPFC such that the negative self-conscious emotion (guilt) was associated with a more dorsal activation, and the positive self-conscious emotion (pride) was associated with a more ventral activation. We discuss how these results shed light on the nature of mental representations and neural systems involved in self-reflective and affective processing.

Representation and Processing of Lexical Tone and Tonal Variants: Evidence from the Mismatch Negativity.

Pronunciation variation is ubiquitous in the speech signal. Different models of lexical representation have been put forward to deal with speech variability, which differ in the level as well as the nature of mental representation. We present the first mismatch negativity (MMN) study investigating the effect of allophonic variation on the mental representation and neural processing of lexical tones. Native speakers of Standard Chinese (SC) participated in an oddball electroencephalography (EEG) experiment. All stimuli have the same segments (ma) but different lexical tones: level [T1], rising [T2], and dipping [T3]. In connected speech with a T3T3 sequence, the first T3 may undergo allophonic change and is produced with a rising pitch contour (T3V), similar to the lexical T2 pitch contour. Four oddball conditions were constructed (T1/T3, T3/T1, T2/T3, T3/T2; standard/deviant). All four conditions elicited MMN effects, with the T1–T3 pair eliciting comparable MMNs, but the T2–T3 pair asymmetrical MMN effects. There were significantly greater and earlier MMN effects in the T2/T3 condition than that in the reversed T3/T2 condition. Furthermore, the T3/T2 condition showed more rightward MMN effects than the T2/T3 condition and the T1–T3 pair. Such asymmetries suggest co-activation of long-term memory representations of both T3 and T3V when T3 serves as the standard. The acoustic similarity between the activated T3V (by the standard T3) and the incoming deviant stimulus T2 induces acoustic processing of the tonal contrast in the T3/T2 condition, similar to that of within-category lexical tone processing, which is in contrast to the processing of between-category lexical tones observed in the T2/T3, T1/T3, and T3/T1 conditions.

Exploring mental representations for literal symbols using priming and comparison distance effects

Higher-level mathematics requires a connection between literal symbols (e.g., ‘x’) and their mental representations. The current study probes the nature of mental representations for literal symbols using both the priming distance effect, in which ease of comparing a target number to a fixed standard is a function of prime-target distance, and the comparison distance effect, in which ease of comparing two numbers depends on the distance between them. Can literal symbols that have been assigned magnitude access mental representations of quantity to produce distance effects? Forty participants completed number comparison tasks involving Arabic numerals and literal symbols, a training task, and a working memory task. While both distance effects were present with Arabic numerals, there was no evidence of either with literal symbols. Results suggest that literal symbols may not share the same mental representations of magnitude as other number formats or may access them differently. Additional research is needed to understand mental representations utilized in higher-level mathematics (e.g., algebra), which includes both Arabic numerals and literal symbols.

Source misattributions and false recognition errors: Examining the role of perceptual resemblance and imagery generation processes

In three experiments, we examine the extent to which participants’ memory errors are affected by the perceptual features of an encoding series and imagery generation processes. Perceptual features were examined by manipulating the features associated with individual items as well as the relationships among items. An encoding instruction manipulation was included to examine the effects of explicit requests to generate images. In all three experiments, participants falsely claimed to have seen pictures of items presented as words, committing picture misattribution errors. These misattribution errors were exaggerated when the perceptual resemblance between pictures and images was relatively high (Experiment 1) and when explicit requests to generate images were omitted from encoding instructions (Experiments 1 and 2). When perceptual cues made the thematic relationships among items salient, the level and pattern of misattribution errors were also affected (Experiments 2 and 3). Results address alternative views about the nature of internal representations resulting in misattribution errors and refute the idea that these errors reflect only participants’ general impressions or beliefs about what was seen.

Vowel sounds in words affect mental construal and shift preferences for targets.

A long tradition in sound symbolism describes a host of sound-meaning linkages, or associations between individual speech sounds and concepts or object properties. Might sound symbolism extend beyond sound-meaning relationships to linkages between sounds and modes of thinking? Integrating sound symbolism with construal level theory, we investigate whether vowel sounds influence the mental level at which people represent and evaluate targets. We propose that back vowels evoke abstract, high-level construal, while front vowels induce concrete, low-level construal. Two initial studies link front vowels to the use of greater visual and conceptual precision, consistent with a construal account. Three subsequent studies explore construal-dependent tradeoffs as a function of vowel sound contained in the target's name. Evaluation of objects named with back vowels was driven by their high- over low-level features; front vowels reduced or reversed this differentiation. Thus, subtle linguistic cues appear capable of influencing the very nature of mental representation.

Towards an understanding of mental representation

The article deals with traditional ways of understanding human cognitive processes in terms of key ideas of philosophical, cultural, and linguistic sciences, as well as modern ideas concerning the nature of mental representation.

A Cross-Modal Perspective on the Relationships between Imagery and Working Memory.

Mapping the distinctions and interrelationships between imagery and working memory (WM) remains challenging. Although each of these major cognitive constructs is defined and treated in various ways across studies, most accept that both imagery and WM involve a form of internal representation available to our awareness. In WM, there is a further emphasis on goal-oriented, active maintenance, and use of this conscious representation to guide voluntary action. Multicomponent WM models incorporate representational buffers, such as the visuo-spatial sketchpad, plus central executive functions. If there is a visuo-spatial “sketchpad” for WM, does imagery involve the same representational buffer? Alternatively, does WM employ an imagery-specific representational mechanism to occupy our awareness? Or do both constructs utilize a more generic “projection screen” of an amodal nature? To address these issues, in a cross-modal fMRI study, I introduce a novel Drawing-Based Memory Paradigm, and conceptualize drawing as a complex behavior that is readily adaptable from the visual to non-visual modalities (such as the tactile modality), which opens intriguing possibilities for investigating cross-modal learning and plasticity. Blindfolded participants were trained through our Cognitive-Kinesthetic Method (Likova, 2010a, 2012) to draw complex objects guided purely by the memory of felt tactile images. If this WM task had been mediated by transfer of the felt spatial configuration to the visual imagery mechanism, the response-profile in visual cortex would be predicted to have the “top-down” signature of propagation of the imagery signal downward through the visual hierarchy. Remarkably, the pattern of cross-modal occipital activation generated by the non-visual memory drawing was essentially the inverse of this typical imagery signature. The sole visual hierarchy activation was isolated to the primary visual area (V1), and accompanied by deactivation of the entire extrastriate cortex, thus ’cutting-off’ any signal propagation from/to V1 through the visual hierarchy. The implications of these findings for the debate on the interrelationships between the core cognitive constructs of WM and imagery and the nature of internal representations are evaluated.

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Body in Mind: The Role of Embodied Cognition in Self‐Regulation

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Body in Mind: The Role of Embodied Cognition in Self‐Regulation

Internal representations, external representations and ergonomics: towards a theoretical integration

Ergonomics is concerned with how humans interact with systems to perform tasks that achieve goals. This interaction requires thought processes that construct and manipulate mental representations of situations to enable the selection of task-oriented actions having predicted outcomes. Mental representations are, then, central to task performance and therefore ergonomics. The present review assesses the current state of knowledge regarding the nature of mental representations, focusing particularly on: (1) the vast range of existing terminology that underpins discussions about representational constructs; (2) the important role of memory in understanding mental representation; (3) the tight coupling between external and internal representations during task performance. The review concludes by proposing an integrated framework that shows how key proposals concerning mental and external representations from leading theorists can be brought together to complement one another.

Special Corner: representational content and cognitive abilities

Questions about the nature of mental representations and cognitive content and the explanatory value of ascribing representational powers to cognitive systems belong to the most virulent foundational issues in the cognitive sciences. This Special Corner focuses on whether—and if so which—role representational content plays and how it helps to understand and to explain our cognitive abilities. This is of eminent interest both for a conceptual analysis of the modeling task in the cognitive sciences as well as for a deeper philosophical understanding of cognition. The three papers in this Corner try to address these issues from different angles, they result from an International Workshop under the title ‘‘Understanding Cognitive Abilities—Logical and Representational Aspects’’, which took place at the University of Bonn end of August 2007. The concept of representation is extremely dazzling. On the one hand, it seems to be the most obvious theoretical term in the cognitive sciences, indispensable in modelling and explaining the cognitive machinery. On the other hand, the notion of representation adamantly resists any attempts to ‘‘naturalize’’ it or, at least, to develop a widely agreed and convincing theory of representational content. Representations carry content, they are, as philosophers put it, ‘‘about’’ something (mostly the object of an intentional attitude such as belief or knowledge). And it is this asymmetric aboutness-relation which resists an explanation in purely naturalistic terms. How can it be that a mental representation, a neural brain state, say, is ‘‘about’’ something? How can such a relation be integrated into a scientific picture? There do, of course, exist naturalistic accounts of representation in philosophy, first and foremost causal theories of meaning and teleosemantics. But such theories suffer from various conceptual problems—most prominently the problem of misrepresentation (i.e. the problem that naturalistic theories have troubles to account for misrepresentation, which is mainly due to the fact that the aboutness-relation is seemingly asymmetric). Because of these unresolved problems and at the same time triggered by the paradigmatic developments under the headings of dynamicism, embodiment and situated cognition, not a few cognitive scientists and more and more philosophers have argued that the notion of representation should be dismissed altogether, that we should rather model and reconstruct cognition in more direct, physical terms. But this seems to fall short of the overwhelming practice of modelling cognitive systems. The authors in this Special Corner, therefore, adopt a more conservative attitude and try to defend the notion of representation by making clear that in order to model cognitive systems and, especially, to understand cognitive abilities, the concept of representation is of no alternative. The Special Corner also puts a certain emphasis on non-propositional and non-conceptual content and its connection to ‘‘know how’’. Let us consider the papers in more detail. In the first paper ‘‘The Role of Representation in Computation’’, Jon Opie and Gerard O’Brien try to defend the explanatory role representations play in both digital and analog computations. Despite much recent anti-representational scepticism from dynamicist and embodied cognition accounts, the authors not only try to defend the concept of representation but also analyse why, in their opinion, the role of representation has been misconceived by anti-representationalists. As Opie and O’Brien put it, representation plays an indirect role in digital, but a direct role in analog computation. While in the H. Lyre (&) Philosophy Department, University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany e-mail: lyre@uni-bielefeld.de; lyre@uni-bonn.de

Is There a Simple Argument for Higher-Order Representation Theories of Awareness Consciousness?

William Lycan has articulated “a simple argument” for higher-order representation (HOR) theories of a variety of consciousness sometimes labeled ‘awareness consciousness’ (Lycan, Analysis 61.1, January 3–4, 2001). The purpose of this article is to critically assess the influential argument-strategy of the simple argument. I argue that, as stated, the simple argument fails since it is invalid. Moreover, I argue that an obvious “quick fix” would beg the question against competing same-order representation (SOR) theories of awareness consciousness. I then provide a reconstruction of the argument and argue that although the reconstructed argument deserves consideration, it is also too simple as stated. In particular, it raises several controversial questions about the nature of mental representation. These questions must be addressed before a verdict as to the cogency of the HOR argument-strategy can be reached. But since the questions are controversial, a cogent argument for HOR theories of awareness consciousness is unlikely to be simple.

Professor Andy Clark on Natural-born Cyborgs

Bio of Dr. Clark: Dr. Andy Clark is a professor of philosophy and chair in logic and metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Previously, he taught at Washington University at St. Louis and the University of Sussex in England. Clark is one of the founding members of the Contact collaborative research project, whose aim is to investigate the role environment plays in shaping the nature of conscious experience. Dr. Andy Clark research interests include philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence, including robotics, artificial life, embodied cognition, and mind, technology and culture. Dr. Clark's papers and books deal with the philosophy of mind and he is considered a leading scientist in mind extension. He has also written extensively on connectionism, robotics, and the role and nature of mental representation.

Professor Andy Clark on Natural-born Cyborgs

Bio of Dr. Clark: Dr. Andy Clark is a professor of philosophy and chair in logic and metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Previously, he taught at Washington University at St. Louis and the University of Sussex in England. Clark is one of the founding members of the Contact collaborative research project, whose aim is to investigate the role environment plays in shaping the nature of conscious experience. Dr. Andy Clark research interests include philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence, including robotics, artificial life, embodied cognition, and mind, technology and culture. Dr. Clark's papers and books deal with the philosophy of mind and he is considered a leading scientist in mind extension. He has also written extensively on connectionism, robotics, and the role and nature of mental representation.

Use of 2D Similarity Metrics for 3D Object Recognition

How the brain recognizes three-dimensional objects is one of the fundamental open questions in visual neuroscience. The challenge is to determine the information the visual system uses for making recognition decisions. It is generally accepted that shape attributes play an important role in the recognition of many object classes. However, the term ‘shape attributes’ is loosely defined and encompasses not only the projected two-dimensional shapes of the objects, but also their three-dimensional forms. It is unclear whether, for the purpose of recognition, the visual system favors the use of projected shape over depth structure or viceversa. We have developed an experimental paradigm that allows us to directly compare the relative efficacies of the two kinds of information in a simplified object domain, and thereby provides a rigorous method for addressing this important question. Our results indicate that while it is possible for humans to use depth information when explicitly instructed to do so, their default recognition strategy is overwhelmingly biased towards the use of two-dimensional projected shape. We discuss possible reasons for this bias and also consider the implications of these results with regard to the issue of the nature of internal representations for three-dimensional objects.

Formal linguistics and mental representation: Psycholinguistic contributions to the identification and explanation of morphological and syntactic competence

Abstract This paper discusses potential contributions of psycholinguistic techniques and findings to the identification and explanation of linguistic competence, as modelled within the generative paradigm of formal syntax and formal morphology. It is argued that the nature of mental representation, although undoubtedly important in the study of the phylogenesis of syntactic aspects of Universal Grammar (UG), has little to contribute directly to the specification of synchronic syntactic competence. Morphological competence, however, is fundamentally different, at least in languages like English, especially in terms of creativity, compositionality and productivity. These differences, together with the limited psycholinguistic data that are available, indicate that investigation of the mental representation of morphologically complex words can provide crucial evidence for formal linguists' characterisations of morphological knowledge. It is concluded that psycholinguists, syntacticians and morphologists can ...