Symbolic Understanding Research Articles

Understanding of words and symbols by chemistry university students in Croatia

This article reports on a study conducted in Croatia on students' understanding of scientific words and representations, as well as everyday words used in chemistry teaching. A total of 82 undergraduate chemistry students and 36 pre-service chemistry teachers from the Faculty of Science, University of Split, were involved. Students' understanding of language was probed using a diagnostic instrument with various types of tasks: creation of a scientifically sensible sentence using the key word provided without context; explanation of the meaning of a word provided in a contextual sentence; selection of the appropriate usage of a term from multiple-choice options; explanation of the meaning of a word provided without context. With every kind of task, evidence of inadequate understanding of many terms and symbols was found. Accordingly, it cannot be presumed that students in Croatia, either undergraduates or graduates, understand well the meanings of scientific words, symbolic representations or everyday words that are used in teaching and learning chemistry. There are considerable differences in the extent of understanding, from word to word, and symbol to symbol. Some of the findings are in common with other studies conducted in English-speaking countries, and some are particular to the Croatian language – especially due to students' confusion in the cases of similar sounding words with different meanings, and the different meanings of words in the everyday and science contexts. Recommendations are made for teaching that involves specific attention to learning about the language associated with topics, through reflective discussion and in formative assessments. Issues of knowledge transfer from research to teachers' pedagogical content knowledge, as well as considerations for further research, are discussed.

The allegorical character of political metaphors in discourse

When people talk about politics, they often employ metaphors, sometimes in extended sequences, in which a metaphorical idea is referred to across a larger segment of discourse (e.g., talk about political debates as wars, boxing matches, or games of chess). Empirical studies from psychology indicate that, at least in some cases, metaphors can have great persuasive value. My primary claim in this article is that many political metaphors in discourse are often understood as instances of allegory. Allegories refer to extended metaphors in which an entire narrative introduces and elaborates upon a metaphorical source domain to present a rich symbolic understanding of people and events. I describe several notable instances of political allegory and go on to suggest that people can readily interpret many of these allegories via ‘embodied simulations’ by which they imagine themselves participating in the very actions referred to in the language. These embodied simulations are automatic and sometimes tap into enduring allegorical themes that have symbolic value within different cultural communities.

What Our Hands Say: Exploring Gesture Use in Subgroups of Children With Language Delay.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether children with receptive-expressive language delay (R/ELD) and expressive-only language delay (ELD) differ in their use of gesture; to examine relationships between their use of gesture, symbolic comprehension, and language; to consider implications for assessment and for the nature of problems underlying different profiles of early language delay. Twelve children with ELD (8 boys, 4 girls) and 10 children with R/ELD (8 boys, 2 girls), aged 2-3 years, were assessed on measures of gesture use and symbolic comprehension. Performance of the R/ELD group was significantly poorer than performance of the ELD group on measures of gesture and symbolic comprehension. Gesture use and symbolic comprehension were significantly associated with receptive language, but associations with expressive language were not significant. Findings of this study support previous research pointing to links between gesture and language development, and more specifically, between delays in gesture, symbolic understanding, and receptive rather than expressive language. Given potentially important implications for the nature of problems underlying ELD and R/ELD, and for assessment of children with language delay, this preliminary study invites further investigation comparing the use of different gesture types in samples of children matched on age and nonverbal IQ.

Cognitive characteristics of navigational map use by mountaineers

ABSTRACTThis study examined the cognitive characteristics of navigational map use by mountaineers. Questionnaires regarding navigation skill and behavior were completed by 362 mountaineers and contour tasks by 155 mountaineers, who participated in a practical course on mountaineering skills. A confirmatory factor analysis of the questionnaire confirmed three cognitive components of map use: Carrying and reference to map and compass; Symbol understanding and Solution of navigational tasks. The score of each cognitive component and the contour tasks differently improved with map-use experience. Gender difference was obtained only in the Line-of-sight task. Another confirmatory factor analysis of questionnaire and contour tasks showed good fit. Contour interpretation skills strongly explained the Navigational map use, which was the second factor from the above three components. The results suggest: (a) contour interpretation is a multifaceted cognitive task consisting of two-dimensional pattern recognition and three-dimensional transformation, (b) map-use skills consist of problem-solving of navigation in addition to basic understanding of map symbols and (c) even the mountaineers with long experience do not necessarily acquire full skills of contour interpretation but solve navigational problems with available cognitive skills, which were acquired in the constraint of the environment.

The Role of Intuitive Approximation Skills for School Math Abilities

ABSTRACTResearch has shown that educated children and adults have access to two ways of representing numerical information: an approximate number system (ANS) that is present from birth and allows for quick approximations of numbers of objects encountered in one's environment, and an exact number system (ENS) that is acquired through experience and instruction, that requires an understanding of language and symbols, and that is at the core of school math abilities. While these two systems are distinct, individual differences in the acuity of the ANS predict later math abilities and advancing the ENS leads to increases in the acuity of the ANS suggesting a reciprocal connection between the two systems. Recently, the focus of the field has turned toward elucidating the mechanisms that underlie this connection, but more work is also needed to understand the sources of individual differences in the ANS and ENS in the first place.

Indian topographical map symbols understanding system

Symbol understanding is a pre-requisite for reading and interpretation of any map. Thus, any topographic map-based automated system needs to understand generic symbols associated with the set of maps. The objective of this study was to develop an automated system for the understanding of Survey of India topographic map symbols. The system has been developed making use of shape analysis adopting a complex-valued chain coding method for representation of the (exterior) boundary of the symbol. Fourier discrete transform and autocorrelation function have been used for shape descriptions. Classification and recognition have been implemented through a template matching method based on similarity measures. The system has been trained with 150 samples of 20 Indian topographic symbols and tested for 200 samples of each of the 20 symbols extracted from sample maps. Experimental results showed that the proposed method has an overall recognition rate of 84.68% as well as the improved mean average precision of symbol recognition. However, understanding of interconnected and/or crowded symbols may be taken up as future scope of this work.

Do iPads promote symbolic understanding and word learning in children with autism?

The use of the Apple iPad has skyrocketed in educational settings, along with largely unsubstantiated claims of its efficacy for learning and communication in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here, we examine whether children with ASD are better able to learn new word–referent relations using an iPad or a traditional picture book. We also examine the hypothesis that presenting multiple, differently colored, exemplars of a target referent will promote adaptive label generalization compared to the use of a single exemplar. Sixteen minimally verbal children with ASD were taught a new word in four within-subjects conditions, which varied by media (iPad vs. book) and content (single vs. multiple exemplar presentation). Children were then tested on the ability to symbolically relate the word to a 3-D referent (real-life depicted object) and generalize it to a differently colored category member (another similarly shaped object). The extent of symbolic understanding did not differ between the two media, and levels of generalization did not differ across conditions. However, presentation of multiple exemplars increased the rate that children with ASD extended labels from pictures to depicted objects. Our findings are discussed in terms of the importance of content to picture-based learning and the potential benefits and challenges of using the Apple iPad as an educational resource for children with ASD.

Nonverbal generics: human infants interpret objects as symbols of object kinds.

Human infants are involved in communicative interactions with others well before they start to speak or understand language. It is generally thought that this communication is useful for establishing interpersonal relations and supporting joint activities, but, in the absence of symbolic functions that language provides, these early communicative contexts do not allow infants to learn about the world. However, recent studies suggest that when someone demonstrates something using an object as the medium of instruction, infants can conceive the object as an exemplar of the whole class of objects of the same kind. Thus, an object, just like a word, can play the role of a symbol that stands for something else than itself, and infants can learn general knowledge about a kind of object from nonverbal communication about a single item of that kind. This rudimentary symbolic capacity may be one of the roots of the development of symbolic understanding in children.

The Understanding of Symbols and Their Role in the Ascent of the Soul to God in Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Nicholas of Cusa

This article considers the issue of changes in the understanding of symbols as an integral part of spiritual life in Neoplatonic philosophy. It seems that ancient Neoplatonic philosophers were the first who clearly realized the importance of symbols to spiritual life. However, it happened due to the influence of the mystical Chaldean and Egyptian thought transferred to philosophical investigation by the Chaldean oracles and Corpus hermeticum. The late Neoplatonic thought of Iamblichus and Eastern Neoplatonic schools used symbols and rituals as integral parts of philosophical investigation, understood as having a mystical goal. Especially mathematical symbols played a significant role, because they were used in the most advanced theurgical rituals. This analysis of the pagan Neoplatonic philosophy permits us to show properly the thought of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, who creatively transformed the teaching of his pagan predecessors, by incorporating ancient Neoplatonic tradition into Christian theology. Pseudo-Dionysius excludes liturgical symbols from the order of the cosmos and transfers them to the plane of Salvation grounded in Biblical Revelation. Only true symbols are used in the liturgy of the Church, and thus mathematical symbols are no longer needed in the ascent of the soul to unity with God. The third part analyzes the meaning of symbolism in the thought of Nicolas of Cusa. Thanks to the rediscovery of ancient pagan Neoplatonism and Pythagorean thought, Cusanus also brings new life to the mystical meaning of mathematics. Mathematical symbols once again become an important part of the mystical ascent of the soul, but this time without their ritual context.

Mиф о Протесилае и Лаодамии в рецепции символистов

Symbolists made ancient myth similar to the symbol because, unlike Richard Wagner, they ascribed many meanings to it. Myth provided fixed points of reference yet at the same time, like any “ open text,” allowed the representation of new creative thinking. In their theoretical treatises Andrej Belyj, Vjačeslav Ivanov, Valerij Brjusov gave a rationale to the Symbolists’ turn to myth “as the core of the symbolic understanding of life” (Vjač. Ivanov). Brjusov’s Notes about Tragedy, found in the poet’s archive, interpreted Aristotle’s Poetics, yet allow us to understand the structure of his own tragedy. A comparative analysis of Annenskij’s Laodamia, Sologub’s Gift of the Wise Bees and Brjusov’s Protesilaus Dead allows us to confirm that the new tragedies embody a modernist aesthetic model. The reception of ancient myth and its literary variations reflects the neomythological mind of modernism.

Literary lions with real bite: Re-examining the intertextual rhetoric in Daniel 6

The story of Daniel in the lion's pit (Dan 6) is still one of the most well-known stories in the HB. The way the story has been captured in visual form by the Old Masters as well as contemporary depictions thereof in children's Bibles are indicative of its ability to captivate the imagination. In scholarly circles the story has also received considerable attention, most of which relates to issues of historical and/or literary nature. Thus, it has been proposed that the story in the HB may be the result of a mistaken literalization of a Babylonian literary motif. The present paper seeks to address the issue of such a symbolic understanding of the lions in the story. However, instead of looking to the Babylonian context for a literary antecedent, it is proposed that Israel's own literary tradition may shed light into this dark pit. The study of the metaphor of teeth in the Psalter points to a literary connection between the malicious accusations of the presidents and satraps (in Dan 6) and Daniel's eventual fate among the lions.

Shadows of the Past: Phantoms of the Negative and Traces of the Affective

Originally presented in 2013, the centenary year of Paul Ricoeur’s birth, this ISRLC Annual Lecture proposed the creation of a new picture of affective memory. After his death in 2005, Ricoeur could be read differently. He had shown us how to elevate self-affection to a new level of symbolic understanding. Instead of merely accepting life’s inevitable march towards death, he uncovers affective traces, which survive and increase the intuitive power of memory. His symbols, which ‘give rise to thought’, are deepened and developed in his Deleuze-informed encounter with Bergson and Proust on memory. Living up to a new future, Ricoeur overcomes the ghost of Hegel, which haunts as a phantom of the negative, and allows shadows of the past to give way: to ‘the affirmation and the difference in the affirmation’. Thus Deleuze has, for Ricoeur, replaced the negative with the difference that makes all the difference.

Reassembling religious symbols: the Pagan God Baphomet

Religious symbols are primarily significant because they draw people into relationships. Drawing on actor-network theory the paper demonstrates that symbols are hybrids of beliefs, cognitive interpretations, ritual performances and relational networks. The significance of symbols is located in this middle ground, as they mediate between thought and action, as well as between interpretative meaning and relational practice. Aesthetic experiences and ritual performance are interwoven with cognitive meaning and representation to generate the impact of religious symbols. This understanding of symbols is illustrated through an ethnographic account of a Pagan ritual involving the deity Baphomet. One of the participants describes this ritual succinctly: ‘Baphomet is a recreation of the Witches’ sabbat, an invocation of archetypal Witchcraft. It's R-rated, it contains adult themes, nudity and sex references.’ Through ritual experiences, religious symbols change the way people feel about themselves, the world and the people around them.

Intentional Teaching Facilitates Young Children's Comprehension and Use of a Symbolic Object

ABSTRACTChildren are exposed to symbolic objects that they have to learn to use very early in life. The authors’ aim was to examine whether it is possible to intentionally teach young children the symbolic function of an object. They employed a search task in which children had to use a map to find a toy. Experiment 1 revealed that with no instruction 3-year-, 10-month-old children were quite successful; 3-year-, 6-month-olds showed a divided performance; and 3-year-, 0-month-olds failed. With this baseline, Experiment 2 compared the performance of 3-year-, 0-month-olds in three different conditions: no-instruction, complete instruction (before the task begins), and teaching (complete instruction plus corrective feedback); only children in the teaching condition succeeded. However, children 6 months younger, 2-year-, 6-month-olds, failed despite teaching that was provided (Study 3). This research shows that at some points in development instruction is not enough; intentional teaching in communicative contexts is the mechanism that boosts symbolic understanding in early childhood.

Symbolic Understanding of Pictures and Written Words Share a Common Source

Here we examine the hypothesis that symbolic understanding across domains is mediated by a fundamental ‘symbolizing’ ability in young children. We tested 30 children aged 2–4 years on symbolic tasks assessing iconic and non-iconic word-referent and picture-referent understanding and administered standardised tests of symbolic play and receptive language. Children showed understanding of the symbol-referent relation earlier for pictures than written words, and performance within domains was correlated and, importantly, predicted by a marker of general symbolic ability (e.g., pretend play). Performance on picture and written word tasks was also unrelated to language comprehension. Thus, symbolic abilities in specific domains are underpinned by a general symbolizing ability which arises early in development.

Towards Human-Level Semantics Understanding of Human-Centered Object Manipulation Tasks for HRI: Reasoning About Effect, Ability, Effort and Perspective Taking

In its lifetime, a robot should be able to autonomously understand the semantics of different tasks to effectively perform them in different situations. In this context, it is important to distinguish the meaning (in terms of the desired effect) of a task and the means to achieve that task. Our focus is those tasks in which one agent is required to perform a task for another agent, such as give, show, hide, make-accessible, etc. In this paper, we identify that a high-level human-centered combined reasoning, based on perspective taking, efforts and abilities analyses, is the key to understand semantics of such tasks. By combining these aspects, the robot infers sets of hierarchy of facts, which serve for analyzing the effect of a task. We adapt the explanation based learning approach enabling the task understanding from the very first demonstration and continuous refinement with new demonstrations. We argue that such symbolic level understanding of a task, which is not bound to trajectory, kinematics structure or shape of the robot, facilitates generalization to novel situations as well as ease the transfer of acquired knowledge among heterogeneous robots. Further, the knowledge of tasks at such human understandable level of abstraction will enrich the natural human–robot interaction.

Developmental pathways of language and social communication problems in 9-11 year olds: unpicking the heterogeneity.

This paper addressed relations between language, social communication and behaviour, and their trajectories, in a sample of 9-11-year-olds (n=91) who had been referred to clinical services with concerns about language as pre-schoolers. Children were first assessed at 2½-4 years, and again 18 months later. Results revealed increasing differentiation of profiles across time. By 9-11 years, 11% of the sample had social communication deficits, 27% language impairment, 20% both, and 42% neither. The size of group differences on key language and social communication measures was striking (2-3 standard deviations). Social communication deficits included autistic mannerisms and were associated with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBDs); in contrast, language impairment was associated with hyperactivity only. Children with both language and social communication problems had the most severe difficulties on all measures. These distinct school-age profiles emerged gradually. Investigation of developmental trajectories revealed that the three impaired groups did not differ significantly on language or SEBD measures when the children were first seen. Only low performance on the Early Sociocognitive Battery, a new measure of social responsiveness, joint attention and symbolic understanding, differentiated the children with and without social communication problems at 9-11 years. These findings suggest that some children who first present with language delay or difficulties have undetected Autism Spectrum Disorders which may or may not be accompanied by language impairment in the longer term. This new evidence of developmental trajectories starting in the preschool years throws further light on the nature of social communication and language problems in school-age children, relations between language impairment and SEBDs, and on the nature of early language development.

Les garçons et la buse dans l'espace rural traditionnel lorrain

ABSTRACT Boys and the buzzard in traditional rural areas in Lorraine. In connection with a Lorraine tale that explains ‘why children do not walk when they are born’, the author re-examines the context of rural society before industrialization and proposes to link the activities of young boys who go around with noise instruments in the Easter period, beliefs about animals, the concerns of women about care of the farmyard and babies learning to walk. The author's analysis of these various activities follows the approach of C. Levi-Strauss. The chains of symbolic understanding thus exposed reveal the coherence and, to a certain extent, the strangeness of our older European societies, which are so close to us temporally and so far away in their attitudes.

The Development of Children’s Understanding of Maps and Models: A Prospective Cognition Perspective

This article takes a prospective cognition perspective in reviewing research on the development of children’s understanding of spatial symbols, such as scale models and maps. We suggest that using spatial symbols requires that children think about where an object will be found rather than where they last saw it. In addition, we suggest that as children’s knowledge of maps grows, they begin to think about large-scale space through the mediated perspective that maps provide.Maps allow people to see and to think about multiple relations among locations, as well as spaces that are much larger than can be directly perceived. Learning about the world through maps is a good example of what Tomasello (1999) called the cultural ratchet effect; each generation can rely on information from prior generations rather than having to learn or discover it on their own. Thus, cultures share views of space through maps, and the development of the cognition of large-scale space consists in part of learning to think about the world through maps.

Two Concepts of Religious Freedom in the European Court of Human Rights

In this article, Bhuta revisits the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights’ interpretation of religious freedom in the headscarf cases. He considers how recent historical work on the history of religious freedom and freedom of conscience opens up a new interpretation of these decisions. The court has been criticized as adopting a militantly secular approach to the presence of Islamic religious symbols in the public sphere, one seemingly inconsistent with its decision in the Lautsi case permitting the display of crucifixes in Italian classrooms. Bhuta’s essay argues that the inconsistency reflects not, or not only, a cultural hostility toward Islamic religious symbols, nor an unforgiving secularism. Rather, the cases turn on an understanding of certain religious symbols as threats to public order and harbingers of sectarian strife. This understanding evokes two different historical understandings of the concept of freedom of conscience: an early modern preoccupation with religious plurality as threatening public order, and a postwar understanding of religious freedom as the protection of secularized Christian values against the totalitarian propensities of modern politics.