Causal Cognition and Culture

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Bender ◽  
Sieghard Beller ◽  
Douglas L. Medin
Keyword(s):  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Core Concept ◽  
Research Strategies ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
Potential Factors ◽  
Cognition And Culture ◽  
Causal Cognition ◽  
Blind Spots ◽  
The Way

Causality is a core concept of human cognition, but the extent to which cultural factors constrain, trigger, or shape the way in which humans think about causal relationships has barely been explored. This chapter summarizes empirical findings on the potential for cultural variability in the content of causal cognition, in the way this content is processed, and in the context in which all this occurs. This review reveals cultural variability in causal cognition along each of these dimensions and across physical, biological, and psychological explanations. Specifically, culture helps defining the settings in which causal cognition emerges, the manner in which potential factors are pondered, and the choices for highlighting some causes over others or for expressing them in distinct ways. Future tasks include the need to re-conceptualize ‘culture’ and to overcome blind spots in research strategies such as those linked to disciplinary boundaries and the ‘home-field disadvantages’ in cross-cultural comparisons.

What is the purpose of cognition?

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aba Szollosi ◽  
Ben R. Newell
Keyword(s):  
Infinite Number ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
The Way

Abstract The purpose of human cognition depends on the problem people try to solve. Defining the purpose is difficult, because people seem capable of representing problems in an infinite number of ways. The way in which the function of cognition develops needs to be central to our theories.

Language and creativity: a Construction Grammar approach to linguistic creativity

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Hoffmann
Keyword(s):  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Evolutionary Adaptation ◽  
Theory Construction ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
Explanatory Account ◽  
The Way

AbstractCreativity is an important evolutionary adaptation that allows humans to think original thoughts, to find solutions to problems that have never been encountered before and to fundamentally change the way we live. One particular domain of human cognition that has received considerable attention is linguistic creativity. The present paper discusses how the leading cognitive linguistic theory, Construction Grammar, can provide an explanatory account of creativity that goes beyond the issue of linguistic productivity. At the same time, it also outlines how Construction Grammar can benefit from insights from Conceptual Blending.

“Down-to-Earth TV dramas”: The reception of authenticity, reality, and modality in Danish TV dramas

2021 ◽  
pp. 174960202110463
Author(s):  
Yeşim Kaptan
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Television Viewing ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Focus Group Interviews ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
Group Interviews ◽  
Empirical Material ◽  
The Way

This article investigates how Turkish audiences conceptualize authenticity in their engagement with foreign television (TV) productions in the case of Danish TV dramas. The theoretical notion of authenticity is juxtaposed with empirical material from fieldwork interactions, focus group interviews, and one-on-one interviews conducted with Turkish audiences between 2016 and 2018. By employing a semiotic analysis of fieldwork data, I argue that Turkish audiences attribute authenticity to the Danish TV drama series according to a socially created modality (truth value of a sign). This article draws on accounts about modality markers in TV drama series such as authentic portrayals of Danish TV characters and plausible-realistic depictions as a verisimilitudinous representation of everyday life. In the context of cross-cultural television viewing practices, the way Turkish audiences attribute meaning to Danish TV series in terms of authenticity, realism, and modality reveals a distinct differentiation between Danish TV dramas and other nationally and globally circulating media products.

scholarly journals Women and Orientalism: 19th century Representations of the Harem by European female travellers and Ottoman women

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 10
Author(s):  
Thisaranie Herath
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
The West ◽  
Cultural Exchanges ◽  
Private Spaces ◽  
The Way

The inaccessibility of the Ottoman harems to European males helped perpetuate the image of the harem as purely sexual in nature and contributed to imperialistic discourse that positioned the East as inferior to the West. It was only with the emergence of female travellers and artists that Europe was afforded a brief glimpse into the source of their fantasies; however, whether these accounts catered to or challenged the normative imperialist discourse of the day remains controversial. Emerging scholarship also highlights the way in which harem women themselves were able to control the depiction of their private spaces to suit their own needs, serving to highlight how nineteenth century depictions of the harem were a series of cross-cultural exchanges and negotiations between male Orientalists, female European travellers, and shrewd Ottoman women. 

Models of Self-Replicators

2010 ◽  
pp. 282-314
Author(s):  
Eleonora Bilotta ◽  
Pietro Pantano
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
External World ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Cognitive Representations ◽  
Christopher Alexander ◽  
On Line ◽  
Instinctive Behavior ◽  
Species Specific ◽  
The Way

Structural models and patterns are vitally important for human beings. From birth, we base our emotional and cognitive representations of the external world on species-specific signals (the human face) and exploit these signals to structure our instinctive behavior. The creation of cognitive patterns to represent the world lies at the very heart of human cognition. It is this process that underlies our efficient use of signs, our ability to communicate with natural languages and to build cognitive artifacts, the way we organize the external world, and the way we organize external events in our memories and our flow of consciousness. Patterns are sometimes called schemas, or models, and discussed in terms of a gestalt (Piaget, 1960; 1970; Koelher, 1974). In the middle ages a pattern meant “the.original.proposed.to.imitation;.the. archetype;.that.which.is.to.be.copied;.an.exemplar” (from the On Line Etymology Dictionary). Modern use dates back to the XVIII century. In 1977 Christopher Alexander introduced a new way of using the term in architecture. For Alexander, a pattern was a model used to encode and organize existing knowledge, avoiding the need to reinvent the knowledge every time it was needed. For Alexander a pattern was “a three part rule, which expresses a relation between a certain context, a problem, and a solution” (Alexander et al., 1977).

Experimental and Cross-Cultural Epistemology

2021 ◽  
pp. 210-232
Author(s):  
Jonathan Stoltz
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Tibetan Buddhist ◽  
Buddhist Epistemology ◽  
Experimental Epistemology ◽  
Tacit Assumptions ◽  
Is Value ◽  
The Way

Chapter 10 examines how contemporary trends in experimental philosophy can benefit from the study of Buddhist epistemology. In particular, it explores the question of whether an appreciation of Buddhist epistemology could inform philosophers about both the merits of experimental epistemology and experimental philosophy’s emphasis on probing intuitions about knowledge. The second half of the chapter steps back from this examination of experimental philosophy and argues that there is value to be found in contemporary philosophers learning more about other traditions of epistemological theorizing, including the Indian and Tibetan Buddhist traditions of epistemology. Among other things, it can serve to change the way we view our own tradition of epistemology and lay bare the tacit assumptions that undergird contemporary discussions of knowledge.

scholarly journals Striving for Entrepreneurial Autonomy: A Comparison of Russia and the Netherlands

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Van Gelderen ◽  
Galina Shirokova ◽  
Vladimir Shchegolev ◽  
Tatiana Beliaeva
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Emerging Market ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
Structural Similarity ◽  
Business Owners ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Comparison ◽  
Business Ownership ◽  
Cross Cultural Comparison ◽  
The Way

ABSTRACTAutonomy is a primary motive, as well as source of satisfaction, for those who start and run their own business. Autonomy is not inherent to business ownership – owner/founders must make concentrated efforts to achieve and maintain autonomy. This study aims to increase our understanding of autonomy by investigating how it is experienced, the factors that affect it, and the actions that business owners take to attain and retain it. We study these topics in the setting of an emerging market – Russia – and compare the outcomes with a similar study conducted in the Netherlands. Our cross-cultural comparison reveals that the way autonomy is experienced and attained can be viewed as an expression of survival values in Russia and of self-expression values in the Netherlands. We posit an underlying structural similarity by theorizing the level of experienced entrepreneurial autonomy to be the outcome of the balance of power and dependencies.

scholarly journals DeCACHe: Supporting Designers in Creating Cognition-Centered Adaptive Cultural Heritage Activities

Heritage ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 2573-2596
Author(s):  
George Raptis ◽  
Christos Sintoris ◽  
Nikolaos Avouris
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
User Study ◽  
User Studies ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Process Information ◽  
Cognitive Characteristics ◽  
Technical Professionals ◽  
The Way

Cultural heritage (CH) institutions attract wide and heterogeneous audiences, which should be efficiently supported and have access to meaningful CH content. This introduces numerous challenges when delivering such experiences, given that people have different cognitive characteristics which influence the way we process information, experience, behave, and acquire knowledge. Our recent studies provide evidence that human cognition should be considered as a personalization factor within CH contexts, and thus we developed a framework that delivers cognition-centered personalized CH activities. The efficiency and the efficacy of the framework have been successfully assessed through two user studies, but non-technical professionals (e.g., CH designers) may face difficulties when attempting to use it and create personalized CH activities. In this paper, we present DeCACHe, which supports CH designers in creating cognition-centered personalized CH activities throughout different phases of the design lifecycle. We also report a user study with seventeen professional CH designers, who used our tool to design CH activities for people with different cognitive characteristics.

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