scholarly journals Navigating Concepts in the Human Mind Unravels the Latent Geometry of Its Semantic Space

Complexity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Barbara Benigni ◽  
Monica Dallabona ◽  
Elena Bravi ◽  
Stefano Merler ◽  
Manlio De Domenico
Keyword(s):  
Neurodegenerative Diseases ◽  
Memory Retrieval ◽  
Healthy Subjects ◽  
Semantic Networks ◽  
Semantic Space ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Computational Framework ◽  
Functional Representations

Mechanisms for retrieving basic knowledge in the human mind are still unknown. Exploration is usually represented by cognitive units, i.e., concepts, linked together by associative relationships forming semantic networks. However, understanding how humans navigate such networks remains elusive, because the underlying topology of concepts cannot be observed directly, and only functional representations are accessible. Here, we overcome those limitations and show that the hypothesis of an underlying, latent geometry characterizing the human mind is plausible. We characterize this geometry by means of adequate descriptors for exploring and navigating dynamics, demonstrating that they can capture the differences between healthy subjects and patients at different stages of dementia. Our results provide the first fundamental step to develop a new unifying conceptual and computational framework that can be used to support the assessment of neurodegenerative diseases from language and semantic memory retrieval tasks, as well as helping develop targeted nonpharmacological therapies to maintain residual cognitive capacity.

Political sophistication

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Παύλος Βασιλόπουλος
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Information ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Political Sophistication

This dissertation is concerned with the concept of political sophistication, referring to the extent and organization of a person’s stored political cognition (Luskin 1987).Available empirical evidence on the levels of political sophistication in mass publics comes almost exclusively from the United States and point to two broad conclusions: First, systematic empirical research has demonstrated that political information in the mass public is particularly low (Converse 1964, Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996). Citizens lack basic knowledge over political affairs. Time and again empirical studies have systematically showed that citizens in the United States and elsewhere fall short of passing even the most rudimentary political knowledge tests. This finding that was first illustrated by the Michigan school in the early 1960s (Campbell et al. 1960) resulted in a wide pessimism over the meaning of public opinion and even of representative democracy (Inglehart 1985).The second broad conclusion is that the politically sophisticated and unsophisticated differ: Political sophisticates have the cognitive capacity to translate their deeper held political values and predispositions into consistent political attitudes (Zaller 1992). They are able to use their political knowledge in order to make informed vote choices in the sense that they accurately adjust their political positions to the parties’ platforms (Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996, Lau and Redlawsk 1997, 2006). What is more, they are more likely to participate in elections and other political activities and are less susceptible to political propaganda (Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996).However the idea that political sophistication matters for the quality of the public’s political decision-making has met strong theoretical and methodological criticism by the ‘low information rationality’ perspective (Popkin 1991, Lupia 1994,Graber 2001). This group of theories argues that politically inattentive citizens can form their political judgment on the basis of heuristics that allow them to make reasonable choices reflecting their predispositions and interests even though they lack political knowledge.The principal aims of this thesis are: a)to compare different measurement perspectives on political sophistication and assess their methodological potential especially in regard with comparative research on political knowledgeb)to explore the extent to which the pattern of ignorance that has been repeatedly highlighted in the American literature is an internal characteristic of political behavior stemming from the low expected utility of acquiring political information or it is subject to particular cultural and systemic characteristics. To this direction I use Greece as a case study by undertaking an analytical survey of political sophistication, one of the very few that have been conducted across the Atlantic.c)The third aim is to investigate the determinants of political sophistication and especially the potential of the mass media in political learning and in the context of the Greek political and media system.d)d) Finally this thesis addresses the unresolved question concerning the differences in quality of political decisions between the political sophisticated and unsophisticated layers of the public by evaluating the explanatory potential of two competing theories (political sophistication v. low information rationality) in the multi-party political environment of Greece

Introduction

Mind Shift ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
John Parrington
Keyword(s):  
Human Brain ◽  
Past History ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Brain Evolution ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Human Uniqueness ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Brain

This introductory chapter begins by providing an overview of the power of the human brain, which is displayed in the wonders of modern civilization. Despite the human brain’s capacity for such intellectual and technological feats, we still know astonishingly little about how it achieves them. This deficit in understanding is a problem not only because it means we lack basic knowledge of the biological factors that underlie our human uniqueness, but also because, for all its amazing capabilities, the human mind seems particularly prone to dysfunction. Still, some would argue there is good reason to be optimistic about the prospect of developing new and better treatments for mental disorders in the not-so-distant future. Such optimism is based on the increasing potential to study how the brain works in various important new ways thanks to recent technological innovations. The chapter then considers two overly polarised views of the human mind. Ultimately, this book argues that society radically restructures the human brain within an individual person’s lifetime, and that it has also played a central role in the past history of our species, by shaping brain evolution.

scholarly journals Word from the editors

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 661-664
Author(s):  
ZORNITSA KOZAREVA ◽  
VIVI NASTASE ◽  
RADA MIHALCEA
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Semantic Networks ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Semantic Relations ◽  
Web Pages ◽  
Regular Graphs ◽  
Knowledge Repositories ◽  
Knowledge Stores ◽  
The Web

Graph structures naturally model connections. In natural language processing (NLP) connections are ubiquitous, on anything between small and web scale. We find them between words – as grammatical, collocation or semantic relations – contributing to the overall meaning, and maintaining the cohesive structure of the text and the discourse unity. We find them between concepts in ontologies or other knowledge repositories – since the early ages of artificial intelligence, associative or semantic networks have been proposed and used as knowledge stores, because they naturally capture the language units and relations between them, and allow for a variety of inference and reasoning processes, simulating some of the functionalities of the human mind. We find them between complete texts or web pages, and between entities in a social network, where they model relations at the web scale. Beyond the more often encountered ‘regular’ graphs, hypergraphs have also appeared in our field to model relations between more than two units.

An investigation of semantic space in patients with schizophrenia

1996 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 267-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark S. Aloia ◽  
Monica L. Gourovitch ◽  
Daniel R. Weinberger ◽  
Terry E. Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Information ◽  
Semantic Networks ◽  
Semantic Space ◽  
Clustering Techniques ◽  
Word Generation ◽  
Semantic Organization ◽  
Specific Category ◽  
Relative Proximity ◽  
Schizophrenic Patients ◽  
Fluency Task

AbstractThere has been increasing interest in the semantic cognitive system in schizophrenia. Recent findings suggest a possible breakdown of semantic information processing in this disorder. The current study attempts to further examine semantic organization in schizophrenia. Twenty-eight chronic, early-onset schizophrenic patients and 32 controls were matched for prcmorbid intelligence and compared in their ability to spontaneously cluster exemplars from a specific category during a fluency task. Using multidimensional scaling and clustering techniques, 11 exemplars occurring most frequently in both groups were chosen for examination of their relative “proximity” during word generation. Patients with schizophrenia showed a less stable two-dimensional organization of exemplars and were less likely to group exemplars into subordinate clusters than were normals. These results suggest that semantic networks arc disorganized in these patients. These findings may have some implications for the debate over the origin of “thought disorder” in schizophrenia. (JINS, 1996, 2, 267–273.)

scholarly journals Application of Sebum Lipidomics to Biomarkers Discovery in Neurodegenerative Diseases

Metabolites ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 819
Author(s):  
Stefania Briganti ◽  
Mauro Truglio ◽  
Antonella Angiolillo ◽  
Salvatore Lombardo ◽  
Deborah Leccese ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fatty Acids ◽  
Vitamin E ◽  
Observational Study ◽  
Neurodegenerative Diseases ◽  
Free Fatty Acids ◽  
Healthy Subjects ◽  
Skin Surface ◽  
Biosynthetic Pathways ◽  
Simultaneous Component Analysis ◽  
Lipid Species

Lipidomics is strategic in the discovery of biomarkers of neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs). The skin surface lipidome bears the potential to provide biomarker candidates in the detection of pathological processes occurring in distal organs. We investigated the sebum composition to search diagnostic and, possibly, prognostic, biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD). The observational study included 64 subjects: 20 characterized as “probable AD with documented decline”, 20 as “clinically established PD”, and 24 healthy subjects (HS) of comparable age. The analysis of sebum by GCMS and TLC retrieved the amounts (µg) of 41 free fatty acids (FFAs), 7 fatty alcohols (FOHs), vitamin E, cholesterol, squalene, and total triglycerides (TGs) and wax esters (WEs). Distributions of sebum lipids in NDDs and healthy conditions were investigated with multivariate ANOVA-simultaneous component analysis (ASCA). The deranged sebum composition associated with the PD group showed incretion of most composing lipids compared to HS, whereas only two lipid species (vitamin E and FOH14:0) were discriminant of AD samples and presented lower levels than HS sebum. Thus, sebum lipid biosynthetic pathways are differently affected in PD and AD. The characteristic sebum bio-signatures detected support the value of sebum lipidomics in the biomarkers search in NDDs.

scholarly journals Kynurenic Acid Levels are Increased in the CSF of Alzheimer’s Disease Patients

Biomolecules ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 571 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta González-Sánchez ◽  
Javier Jiménez ◽  
Arantzazu Narváez ◽  
Desiree Antequera ◽  
Sara Llamas-Velasco ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neurodegenerative Diseases ◽  
Neurodegenerative Disorders ◽  
Healthy Subjects ◽  
Kynurenic Acid ◽  
Kynurenine Pathway ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Specific Increase ◽  
Normal Controls ◽  
Lateral Sclerosis

Kynurenic acid (KYNA) is a product of the tryptophan (TRP) metabolism via the kynurenine pathway (KP). This pathway is activated in neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer´s disease (AD). KYNA is primarily produced by astrocytes and is considered neuroprotective. Thus, altered KYNA levels may suggest an inflammatory response. Very recently, significant increases in KYNA levels were reported in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from AD patients compared with normal controls. In this study, we assessed the accuracy of KYNA in CSF for the classification of patients with AD, cognitively healthy controls, and patients with a variety of other neurodegenerative diseases, including frontotemporal dementia (FTD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). Averaged KYNA concentration in CSF was higher in patients with AD when compared with healthy subjects and with all the other differentially diagnosed groups. There were no significant differences in KYNA levels in CSF between any other neurodegenerative groups and controls. These results suggest a specific increase in KYNA concentration in CSF from AD patients not seen in other neurodegenerative diseases.

scholarly journals Cognitive Frames in Media Discourse: 'The Guardian' Coverage of the Syrian Refugee Crisis in Europe (2015-2019)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thouraya Zheni
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Networks ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Cognitive Frames ◽  
Syrian Refugee ◽  
Mental Mapping ◽  
Syrian Refugee Crisis ◽  
The Guardian ◽  
Research Show

The aim of the present paper is examining the mental representations activated by semantic networks in media discourse. It studies the cognitive frames that are mentally constructed and activated about illegal immigrants, in general, and Syrian refugees in particular. Any word class can evoke frames, but to limit the scope of analysis, Fairclough's socio-cultural approach is implemented to work out the experiential, relational and expressive values of only nouns and adjectives in media discourse. The corpus consists of articles released by The Guardian newspaper during and after the Syrian refugee crisis between 2015 and 2019. The results of the research show that cognitive frames are used to enhance the stereotypical categorizations of refugees as dislocated, uprooted and oppressed communities. This paper focuses on the mental mapping of such disadvantaged people and how they are categorized and presented in media discourse. It also analyses nouns and adjectives as generators or builders of cognitive frames in the human mind via discourse. This study is original because it relates semantic networks, mental lexicon and cognitive frames to analyze media discourse.

NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING IN HEALTHCARE

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Matthew N.O. Sadiku ◽  
Yu Zhou ◽  
Sarhan M. Musa
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language Processing ◽  
Natural Language ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Written Communication ◽  
Computer Algorithms ◽  
Everyday Language

Natural language processing (NLP)  refers to the process of using of computer algorithms to identify key elements in everyday language and extract meaning from unstructured spoken or written communication.  Healthcare is the biggest user of the NLP tools. It is expected that NLP tools should  be able to bridge the gap between the mountain of data generated daily and the limited cognitive capacity of the human mind.  This paper provides a brief introduction on the use of NLP in healthcare.

Bilingual first language acquisition: exploring the limits of the language faculty

2001 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 153-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred Genesee
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Language Faculty ◽  
Code Mixing ◽  
Syntactic Development ◽  
Theory Of Language ◽  
The One

Most general theories of language acquisition are based on studies of children who acquire one language. A general theory of language acquisition must ultimately accommodate the facts about children who acquire two languages simultaneously during infancy. This chapter reviews current research in three domains of bilingual acquisition: pragmatic features of bilingual code-mixing, grammatical constraints on child bilingual code-mixing, and bilingual syntactic development. It examines the implications of findings from these domains for our understanding of the limits of the mental faculty to acquire language. Findings indicate that infants possess the requisite neuro-cognitive capacity to differentially represent and use two languages simultaneously from the one-word stage onward, and probably earlier. Detailed analyses of the syntactic organization of bilingual child language indicates, moreover, that it conforms to the target systems and, thus, resembles that of children acquiring the same languages monolingually, for the most part. At the same time, bilingual children acquire the distinctive capacity to coordinate their two languages in grammatically constrained ways and in conformity with the target grammars during online production. In short, current evidence attests to the bilingual capacity of the human mind and refutes earlier conceptualizations which viewed bilingualism and bilingual acquisition as burdensome and potentially disruptive to development.

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