scholarly journals Creating Something Different: Similarity, Contrast, and Representativeness in Categorization

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph L. Austerweil ◽  
Shi Xian Liew ◽  
Nolan Bradley Conaway ◽  
Kenneth J. Kurtz

The ability to generate new concepts and ideas is among the most fascinating aspects of human cognition, but we do not have a strong understanding of the cognitive processes and representations underlying concept generation. In this paper, we study the generation of new categories using the computational and behavioral toolkit of traditional artificial category learning. Previous work in this domain has focused on how the statistical structure of known categories generalizes to generated categories, overlooking whether (and if so, how) contrast between the known and generated categories is a factor. We report three experiments demonstrating that contrast between what is known and what is created is of fundamental importance for categorization. We propose two novel approaches to modeling category contrast: one focused on exemplar dissimilarity and another on the representativeness heuristic. Our experiments and computational analyses demonstrate that both models capture different aspects of contrast’s role in categorization.

Author(s):  
Arthur V. Jones

In comparison with the developers of other forms of instrumentation, scanning electron microscope manufacturers are among the most conservative of people. New concepts usually must wait many years before being exploited commercially. The field emission gun, developed by Albert Crewe and his coworkers in 1968 is only now becoming widely available in commercial instruments, while the innovative lens designs of Mulvey are still waiting to be commercially exploited. The associated electronics is still in general based on operating procedures which have changed little since the original microscopes of Oatley and his co-workers.The current interest in low-voltage scanning electron microscopy will, if sub-nanometer resolution is to be obtained in a useable instrument, lead to fundamental changes in the design of the electron optics. Perhaps this is an opportune time to consider other fundamental changes in scanning electron microscopy instrumentation.


Author(s):  
Ana Marques

A generative text is a system constituted by non-conscious and conscious cognizers, digital and analogue processes, and mathematical and linguistic modes of representation. But how do algorithms cognize? And how is meaning constructed in a system where authorial intentions and readers’ experiences and interpretations are mediated by algorithmic agents? Through the analysis of How It Is In Common Tongues (Cayley and Howe, 2012), I intend to discuss the tensions that arise from the encounter between algorithmic and human cognition, and between the regimes of information and expression. Drawing on Katherine Hayles’ view on the cognitive non-conscious and Claude Shannon’s information theory I will start by establishing a distinction between information and meaning, between communication and expression, and between the regimes of information and of the literary. To reflect on the political ecology of digital mediation (situated in the informational regime of cybernetics), I will consider Matteo Pasquinelli’s perspective on the co-evolution of technology and economics, and discuss how algorithmic cognitive processes embody and reinforce the structures of contemporary cognitive capitalism. Finally, I will discuss the strategies of resistance enabled by aesthetic approaches to computation, such as the ones explored in this case study.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norbert Vanek ◽  
Marton Soskuthy ◽  
Asifa Majid

Recent research shows that speakers of most languages find smells difficult to abstract and name. Can verbal labels enhance the human capacity to learn smell categories? Few studies have examined how verbal labeling might affect non-visual cognitive processes, and thus far very little is known about word-assisted odor category learning. To address these gaps, we tested whether different types of training change learning gains in odor categorization. After four intensive days of training to categorize odors that were co-presented with arbitrary verbal labels, people who learned odor categories with odor-label pairs that were more consistent were significantly more accurate than people with the same perceptual experience but who had odor-label pairs that were less consistent. Both groups’ accuracy scores improved, but the learning curves differed. The context of consistent linguistic cuing supported a steady increase in correct responses from the onset of training. However, inconsistent linguistic cuing delayed the start of approximating to target odor categorization. These results show that associations formed between odors and novel verbal labels facilitate the formation of odor categories. We interpret this as showing a causal link between language and olfactory perceptual processing in supporting categorization.


1998 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe G. Schyns ◽  
Robert L. Goldstone ◽  
Jean-Pierre Thibaut

According to one productive and influential approach to cognition, categorization, object recognition, and higher level cognitive processes operate on a set of fixed features, which are the output of lower level perceptual processes. In many situations, however, it is the higher level cognitive process being executed that influences the lower level features that are created. Rather than viewing the repertoire of features as being fixed by low-level processes, we present a theory in which people create features to subserve the representation and categorization of objects. Two types of category learning should be distinguished. Fixed space category learning occurs when new categorizations are representable with the available feature set. Flexible space category learning occurs when new categorizations cannot be represented with the features available. Whether fixed or flexible, learning depends on the featural contrasts and similarities between the new category to be represented and the individual's existing concepts. Fixed feature approaches face one of two problems with tasks that call for new features: If the fixed features are fairly high level and directly useful for categorization, then they will not be flexible enough to represent all objects that might be relevant for a new task. If the fixed features are small, subsymbolic fragments (such as pixels), then regularities at the level of the functional features required to accomplish categorizations will not be captured by these primitives. We present evidence of flexible perceptual changes arising from category learning and theoretical arguments for the importance of this flexibility. We describe conditions that promote feature creation and argue against interpreting them in terms of fixed features. Finally, we discuss the implications of functional features for object categorization, conceptual development, chunking, constructive induction, and formal models of dimensionality reduction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-56
Author(s):  
R. Daniel Shaw ◽  
Danny DeLoach ◽  
Jonathan Grimes ◽  
John O. Luchivia ◽  
Sheryl Silzer ◽  
...  

Cognitive studies affect all disciplines that reflect the connection between the mind–brain and human behavior. To state the obvious, Bible translation is a multidisciplinary task influenced by cognitive processes. What, then, do Bible translators need to know about the intended communication of a biblical text on one hand and a people’s context-based inferences on the other? Can these disparate, but necessarily interactive, environments blend to reflect a totality of knowledge from the content of the biblical text? Together, the coauthors explore a variety of cognitive processes that reflect on the relationship between translation and human behavior. Our objective is to show how translated biblical text interfaces with human cognition to affect behavior in specific contexts.


Leonardo ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brigitta Zics

This article presents two interactive artworks that represent a shift in artistic practice in their approach to active spectatorship. This approach to interaction incorporates the cognitive processes of the participant through an aesthetic interconnection between technological effect and affective human response. The discussion of the artworks seeks to demonstrate how this aesthetic interconnection creates a novel approach to an engagement with interaction, while suggesting a new forum for addressing the philosophical problem of the relationship between body and mind. This aesthetic interconnection between technology and human cognition, which will be referred to as affective aesthetics, is stimulated by introducing a novel application of emerging technologies that dynamically effect and evaluate the participant's affective responses through cognitive feedback loops within interactive artworks.


Author(s):  
Oren Benami ◽  
Yan Jin

Conceptual design is a process of creating functions, forms and behaviors. Although cognitive processes are utilized in the development of new ideas, conventional methodologies do not take human cognition into account. However, it is conceivable that if one could determine how cognitive processes are stimulated, then more effective conceptual design methods could be developed. In this paper, we develop a Cognitive Model of Creative Conceptual Design to capture the relationship between the properties that stimulate cognitive processes and the design operations that facilitate cognitive processes. Through cognitive modeling, protocol analysis, and cognitive experiments, this research showed that designers exhibit patterns of creative design behavior, and that these patterns can be captured and instilled into the design process, to promote creativity.


Studia Humana ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-30
Author(s):  
Paweł Balcerak

Abstract In their work McCulloch and Pitts describe an idea of representing all of nervous activity in terms of propositional logic. This idea was quickly challenged. One of reasons for this challenge was rising believe that logic is unable to describe most of human cognitive processes. In this paper we will analyse premises of original McCulloch and Pitts proposition. Following that, we will ask about ability of symbolic (logical) systems to represent human cognition. We will finish by analysing relation between symbolic and subsymbolic computing, in hope of bridging the gap between the two.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomoya Nakai ◽  
Shinji Nishimoto

AbstractOur daily life is realized by the complex orchestrations of diverse brain functions including perception, decision, and action. One of the central issues in cognitive neuroscience is to reveal the complete representations underlying such diverse functions. Recent studies have revealed representations of natural perceptual experiences using encoding models1–5. However, there has been little attempt to build a quantitative model describing the cortical organization of multiple active, cognitive processes. Here, we measured brain activity using functional MRI while subjects performed over 100 cognitive tasks, and examined cortical representations with two voxel-wise encoding models6. A sparse task-type encoding model revealed a hierarchical organization of cognitive tasks, their representation in cognitive space, and their mapping onto the cortex. A cognitive factor encoding model utilizing continuous intermediate features by using metadata-based inferences7 predicted brain activation patterns for more than 80 % of the cerebral cortex and decoded more than 95 % of tasks, even under novel task conditions. This study demonstrates the usability of quantitative models of natural cognitive processes and provides a framework for the comprehensive cortical organization of human cognition.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Botskaris ◽  
B. Kriengwatana ◽  
C. ten Cate

AbstractThe survival of organisms depends highly on their ability to adjust their behavior according to proper categorizations of various events. More than one strategy can be used in categorization. One is the Rule-Based (RB) strategy and the other is Information-Integration (II) strategy. In this research we analyzed the differences between avian and human cognition. Twelve Greek listeners and four Zebra finches were tested in speech category learning tasks. In particular, both humans and Zebra finches had to categorize between Dutch vowels that differ on duration, frequency or both depending on the condition. Feedback was given for correct and incorrect responses. The results showed that humans and Zebra finches are probably using the same methods of learning depending on the categorization tasks that they are exposed to. If Zebra Finches are actually able to acquire (RB) and (II) category structures using the same strategies as humans, the utility of multiple systems of categorization might not be restricted to primates as current literature suggest.


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